Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

GLOUCESTER AND SHARPNESS CANAL (WATER) BILL (By Order)

Second Reading deferred till Monday, 20th June.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROADS

Selby Toll Bridge

1 and 2. Sir L. Ropner: asked the Minister of Transport (1) why Langstone Bridge was recently freed from tolls, in contravention of the pledge made by the right hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire, when Minister of Transport, that Selby toll bridge would be the first toll bridge to be relieved of tolls;
(2) why Conway Bridge in Wales was recently freed from tolls, in contravention of the pledge made by the right hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire, when Minister of Transport, that Selby toll bridge would be the first toll bridge to be relieved of tolls; and if he will ensure that the pledge given by his predecessor is not broken again.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. John Hay): There has been no contravention of a pledge. The statement made in 1954 by my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Lennox-Boyd) clearly related to the priority which he felt should be given to the removal of the tolls at Selby as compared with tolls on other trunk road bridges. Langstone Bridge is not on a trunk road and the toll rights of the old Conway Bridge have not been acquired. As my

hon. Friend is aware, we are now planning to provide a bypass at Selby instead of acquiring and reconstructing the toll bridge there.

Sir L. Ropner: On an unimportant point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I be permitted to ask two quite separate supplementary questions in relation to the two Questions I have on the Order Paper?

Mr. Speaker: If the hon. and gallant Member so wishes. I notice that some hon. Members, without asking permission, ask a number of supplementary questions when called to ask one.

Sir L. Ropner: My two Questions have been answered together, though they relate to two entirely different matters. First, with regard to Lang-stone Bridge, my hon. Friend has just said that no such pledge as I mention in my Question was given. His right hon. Friend made the same statement not long ago and offered to have a tripartite conference between myself, himself and my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire. When my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire accepted that invitation, my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport said that his remark should not have been taken seriously. [HON. MEMBERS: "Speech."] May I ask my right hon. Friend whether that offer is still open? May I ask my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary whether as a grant of no less than £186,000 was given to help in the provision of this new toll-free bridge at Langstone, he thinks that it is within both the spirit and the letter of even his interpretation of the pledge which was given in 1954?

Mr. Hay: With respect, I think that my hon. and gallant Friend has misunderstood the position. I have checked on the records. The position is that in July, 1954, when my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire was Minister of Transport, a discussion took place, at which I understand that my hon. and gallant Friend was present. The record, which was subsequently issued to the Press following the meeting, clearly stated:
The Minister said that he …was anxious that the tolls should be purchased and abolished and a new toll-free bridge constructed at the earliest possible date. Of all toll


bridges on trunk roads he regarded Selby as the case of the highest priority for removal of tolls.
That is the position. If my hon. and gallant Friend wishes to discuss it with my right hon. Friend, I am quite sure that my right hon. Friend would be willing to accommodate him.

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Mapp—Question No. 6.

Sir L. Ropner: On a point of order. I did not put a supplementary question on the second Question on the Order Paper.

Mr. Speaker: I beg the hon. and gallant Member's pardon. His first supplementary was so long that I thought it was two. I called Mr. Mapp.

Sir L. Ropner: rose—

Mr. Speaker: I am sorry, I think that we really must get on.

Dartford-Purfleet Tunnel

Mr. Dodds: asked the Minister of Transport if he will make a statement on the progress made on the Dartford-Purfleet Tunnel and the approach roads; what major measures still require to be carried out before the project is complete; what progress has been made in respect of deciding the scale of toll charges; and whether he is satisfied that in view of the rapid increase in road traffic, the tunnel will be adequate to deal with it.

Mr. Hay: The driving of the tunnel itself has been completed and work on the Essex approaches begun. Tenders will soon be invited for the Kent approach road.
In addition, the tunnel roadway must be built and the ventilating and drainage plant installed. Offices, toll booths and lighting must also be provided. The work is well up to schedule and should be completed in 1962.
The Tunnel Committee is collecting data in order to recommend what toll charges should be made.
The tunnel will make a valuable contribution to the needs of traffic in this area for many years to come.

Mr. Dodds: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that statement. Is he aware that there has been a goad deal of concern on the Kent side because there is no evi-

dence of major works being tackled and, until they are completed, the tunnel cannot be used? Further, will he explain to many puzzled people in Kent why toll charges are to be imposed when the other tunnels are free? Is not this a retrograde step, or is there some explanation which will satisfy the people of Kent?

Mr. Hay: In reply to the first part of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question, I would say that there is no doubt that there does not seem to be very much sign of activity on the Kent side, but this is simply because the Kent approach road comes last in the phasing of the programme. The tolls, I understand, are to be the subject of a Private Bill to be presented in the forthcoming Session, and there will be plenty of opportunity then for the whole matter to be debated.

Mr. Sydney Irving: What interests are being consulted in the consideration of the level of tolls, what user interests and what local authorities?

Mr. Hay: I cannot answer that without notice. All I know is that traffic surveys are going on at the moment to ascertain what is likely to be the amount of traffic which will use the tunnel when provided. I know that because I was stopped during one the other day.

Whitchurch-Pontypridd (Communications)

Mr. Gower: asked the Minister of Transport if he will expedite the improvement of the road communication between the Whitchurch, Glamorgan, Manor Way by-pass and Pontypridd; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Hay: We are pressing on with our plans for this road but we have not yet quite completed our investigation of the scheme for making use of the abandoned railway. This must be done before the necessary statutory Order can be made.

Mr. Gower: Will my hon. Friend take account of the fact that the full benefit can accrue from the considerable amount of money which has been spent on this Manor Way by-pass only if there is an extension of the road at a fairly early date?

Mr. Hay: Yes, Sir.

Park Lane Improvement Scheme

Mr. Driberg: asked the Minister of Transport if, in order to enable work on the Park Lane improvement scheme to proceed at night, as well as in the daytime, without undue disturbance to patients in St. George's Hospital, he will consider offering to equip the hospital, at the expense of his Department, with double windows or other sound-excluding devices.

Mr. Hay: The London County Council has already investigated this proposal. Its conclusion, with which the hospital authorities agree, is that there would be no assurance that noise would be excludede sufficiently to prevent disturbing the patients.
The hon. Member may, however, be glad to know that the surface works will be substantially completed some months before the underpass. This means that traffic should then circulate at least as well as it does now.

Mr. Driberg: Does that Answer mean that the total scheme will take rather less than the twenty-eight months envisaged?

Mr. Hay: No, it does not mean that the total scheme will take less than the twenty-eight months. The surface works will be completed some months before the underpass; the underpass will be the last thing to be completed at the end of the twenty-eight months.

Road Safety

Mr. Gresham Cooke: asked the Minister of Transport whether, with a view to establishing the effects of accident-proneness on road safety, he will consult with the insurance companies in order to discover the proportion of the total number of accidents caused by those Who have had three or more accidents in three years.

The Minister of Transport (Mr. Ernest Marples): The line of inquiry suggested by my hon. Friend has already been followed to some extent, and I will raise this question in the discussions which I am proposing to have with insurance companies and underwriters.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: I thank my right hon. Friend very much for what he has said. Does he agree that, if we could establish that there was a group of acci-

dent-prone people or accident repeaters in this country, we could give them treatment through driver clinics as is done in some states of America, and might not this inquiry be very useful on that account?

Mr. Marples: I hope that something will come out of it. It will certainly be pursued.

Accidents (Deaths)

Mr. Gresham Cooke: asked the Minister of Transport what proportions of deaths on the road have involved old people of 70 years of age and over and young people under 25 years of age, over the last available year.

Mr. Marples: In 1959 l7·8 per cent. of the persons killed in road accidents were aged 70 or over and 33·3 per cent. were under 25.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: These are two very big groups. If we can ascertain that there is a group of people who have accidents, might we not be able to have a specially directed campaign on the dangers affecting old people and young people and thereby reduce the number of accidents?

Mr. Marples: Special consideration and propaganda is already directed to elderly people and children, and this has been very effective in schools. The Question, of course, relates to the under-25 age group, which includes people of widely differing characteristics.

Severn Bridge

Mr. Ness Edwards: asked the Minister of Transport what acreage of land has been so far acquired as working spaces for the construction of the Severn Bridge.

Mr. Marples: No land has yet been acquired but negotiations are in progress.

Mr. Edwards: Is it not about time that the Minister took a firm decision about this matter? It has been shilly-shallying about for years. As the right hon. Gentleman's party has been in power for nine years, we should surely get better progress than this.

Mr. Marples: The district valuer is now negotiating. This is a question of compromise between the rights of the individual and the speed of building.

Mr. Ness Edwards: asked the Minister of Transport, in view of the recent announcement by the Government about the date for the completion of the Severn Bridge, whether he will now make a statement about the date for the commencement of the building of the bridge.

Mr. Marples: The Government have not made such an announcement. As regards the start of work on the Severn Bridge, I would refer the right hon. Member to the reply I gave him on Wednesday, 23rd March, 1960, to which I have nothing to add.

Mr. Edwards: Is it not amazing that Lord Brecon, one of the members of the Government, should make a statement that the bridge is to be completed by 1966, while the Minister himself can make no statement about the date of commencement? When are we to have an end to this confusion?

Mr. Marples: I do not think there is any confusion. I think the question was asked at a meeting held by a junior chamber of commerce and Lord Brecon gave his personal opinion.

Mr. Loughlin: asked the Minister of Transport how many county authorities have requested him to meet a deputation to discuss the proposed Severn Bridge; and what replies he gave.

Mr. Marples: The only request of this kind I have received was from the Negotiating Committee on the Severn Bridge, which includes in its membership the County Councils of Gloucester, Monmouth and Glamorgan. The Committee's principal concern was the date when work on the bridge was expected to begin. It was explained that the date would depend on completing the acquisition of land and on the necessary funds being available. This being so, I did not feel justified in putting the Committee to the inconvenience of coming to London to see me.

Mr. Loughlin: Is the Minister aware that it is much to the advantage of everybody to have completely frank consultation with interested parties in the Severn Bridge project? Is he also aware that the authorities on both sides of the bridge are very concerned about

his reluctance to name a date for the commencement of the scheme, and will he now give a date?

Mr. Marples: I cannot name the date for the commencement of the scheme, because we have not yet got the land.

Mr. Ness Edwards: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the local authorities which had a conference on Friday have, over the last three years, brought pressure on his Department? Surely, he can give a helpful conference of that sort better hope than he is now giving?

Mr. Marples: I think that, rather unusually for him, the right hon. Gentleman is exaggerating, because in this case the district valuer is engaged actively in negotiations, and he cannot move faster because he has to be reasonably fair to those people whose land he is taking.

Kerbs

Mr. Ridley: asked the Minister of Transport if, in the interests of road safety, he will discourage the use of vertical or near-vertical kerbs, except in built-up areas.

Mr. Marples: My divisional road engineers will continue to apply in practice the advice on this subject which my predecessor issued to highway authorities in 1955. He recommended that in rural areas vertical kerbs should be provided only where a footway adjoins or is close to the carriageway and is used to an appreciable extent, or where for some other reason it is dangerous for vehicles to leave the carriageway.

Mr. Ridley: I agree with what my right hon. Friend has said, but does not he think that the time has now come when the specification of appropriate cross-sections for different types of roads should be more forcibly pressed on local authorities? Is not this one way in which we can prevent accidents on the roads?

Mr. Marples: If my hon. Friend has in mind any instance where he thinks that a local authority has not carried out the recommendation I should be grateful for particulars, and will look into them.

Mr. Driberg: Well, here is an instance. Will the right hon. Gentleman find out why that advice was not given, or taken, when the new nuclear power station road was constructed from Latchington to Bradwell in Essex?

Mr. Marples: Yes, I will certainly look into that.

Court Road, Orpington

Mr. Sumner: asked the Minister of Transport the number of accidents in Court Road, Orpington, since 1st July, 1959, and the steps being taken to improve the safety of this road.

Mr. Hay: Since 1st July, 1959, there have been 26 accidents involving personal injury, in 3 of which serious injuries were caused.
Plans are under examination for the construction of an island at the junction of Court Road with Spur Road and Avalon Road which, with approach islands, will improve a length of approximately 750 feet. Advance warning signs for the junction will be erected shortly; a large "Bend" sign has recently been erected about a quarter of a mile south of the junction with Spur Road and Avalon Road.
Dual carriageways are ultimately to be provided throughout Court Road.

Mr. Sumner: My hon. Friend will recall that his right hon. Friend wrote to me on 3rd December last saying that this would be dealt with as a matter of urgency. He said, in fact, that he would ask his divisional engineer to speed things up as much as possible. As the figures of accidents seem most regrettably to have increased—over 24 in the previous year—is my hon. Friend satisfied that sufficient urgency is being given to this matter?

Mr. Hay: Yes, Sir. As my hon. Friend wrote to my right hon. Friend on the subject, it is being pursued as a matter of urgency.

Eastern Avenue Extension, Leyton

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Minister of Transport what further consideration is being given, in respect of the proposed Eastern Avenue extension through the Borough of Leyton, to the problems involved in determining the eastern end of

the extension; and if he will now give an approximate date for the commencement of this work.

Mr. Hay: The design of the junction at the easten end of the proposed Eastern Avenue extension is being studied with the help of information from a recent traffic survey. I cannot yet say when work is likely to start.

Mr. Sorensen: With regard to the first part of my Question, does not the Parliamentary Secretary appreciate that a further extension of the Avenue through that part of Leyton is very complex, and that the sooner it is examined, and a report made, the better it will be? With regard to the second part of my Question, does he appreciate that very many householders are in a very difficult position just now because they cannot sell their houses until they know when the work is likely to start?

Mr. Hay: The answer to the first part of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question is that the roads there are in a complicated pattern, and we want the right answer before we proceed further. As to the second part of his supplementary question, we are well aware of the disquiet that may be caused to property owners and others about our future intentions. We published the Eastern Avenue Extension Order rather earlier than we normally would have done, to try to allay that anxiety as much as possible, but we shall certainly keep this matter very much in mind.

A.40 Road (Speed Limit)

Mr. Darling: asked the Minister of Transport what representations he has received from the Chief Constable of Buckinghamshire on the advisability or otherwise of introducing a 50 miles-an-hour speed limit on the at present unrestricted parts of the A.40 between the boundary of the Metropolitan Police area and High Wycombe; and what reply he made.

Mr. Hay: None, Sir, but we discussed our proposals for a temporary 50 m.p.h. speed limit at Whitsun with the Home Office and a number of chief constables, including a representative of the Chief Constable of Buckinghamshire.

Mr. Darling: Am I to understand, therefore, that no assurance was given


that this new speed limit on the A.40 can be enforced; that the chief constable has not a sufficient number of policemen at his disposal to make sure that that speed limit is observed? Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the present speed limits on the road are not carried out? I live quite close to the road and travel on it daily, and in a period of ten years I have never seen one police patrol on that stretch of the road to carry out enforcement of traffic regulations.

Mr. Hay: As the House knows, Mr. Speaker, we are shortly to proceed to a debate on all these arrangements for Whitsun, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman catches your eye, when he can, perhaps, develop that point.

Mr. Benn: Can the hon. Gentleman say what research has gone on in this country into the relationship between different speeds and enforcement possibilities, such as has gone on in the United States?

Mr. Hay: I am afraid that, without notice, I do not know.

Mr. Darling: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. If, by some chance, I fail not to catch your eye later, how can I get an answer to my supplementary question?

Mr. Speaker: I get so confused with double negatives.

Construction Costs

Mr. Grimond: asked the Minister of Transport the present cost per mile for the construction of dual carriageway four-track roads and any estimated costs of flyovers.

Mr. Marples: It is not possible to give a standard rate per mile, since the cost varies so widely according to the nature of the terrain, the number of rivers, railways and roads to be crossed and the extent to which crossings on the level are eliminated. Recent contracts have varied between £250,000 and £400,000 a mile. Similarly, while a simple flyover in the open country might cost £150,000, one in an urban area might cost almost ten times as much.

Mr. Grimond: As the Minister speeds about the world on his bicycle has he notice that dual carriageway roads and what, in this country, are called fly-

overs,—which means one road crossing another—are becoming quite common outside this country, while the British way of life seems to be tied to the idea of the roundabout? Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us what is holding up the provision of proper cross-overs on dual carriageways? Is it the expense, is it the difficulty of acquiring land, or is it trouble in the Cabinet?

Mr. Marples: I do not think that that supplementary question arises out of the Question on the Order Paper which was directed to estimated costs. I am afraid that I cannot give the hon. Gentleman an estimate—one can never do that with civil engineering costs. The roundabout is an old method, and underpasses are being constructed. There is the one at Hammersmith Broadway. I believe that one was opened at Hook the other day, and there is the one at Hyde Park Corner. It is, therefore, quite wrong to say that they are not being undertaken.

Mr. Popplewell: In view of the right hon. Gentleman's observation that roundabouts are really outmoded, will he see that in any future road development we shall have—instead of these cumbersome, unnecessary roundabouts—flyovers or clover-leaf bridges, so that traffic may make the best use of the expenditure involved in building these modern highways?

Mr. Marples: The roundabout is an old idea that preceded the underpass and the flyover, but I did not say that it was completely obsolete. There are a large number of places, where the traffic is light, where roundabouts are very suitable. Where the traffic is not suitable for roundabouts, we shall have flyovers and underpasses.

Mr. Baxter: Flyovers seem to be very interesting things. Can the right hon. Gentleman say where we can see one in Scotland?

Mr. Marples: That question should be directed to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland.

Marble Arch-Hyde Park Corner Scheme

Mr. Rankin: asked the Minister of Transport the estimated cost of the Marble Arch-Hyde Park Corner scheme; and what is the Government contribution.

Mr. Hay: The estimated cost is £5 million, to which the Government will contribute £3,750,000 by way of grant to the London County Council.

Mr. Rankin: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that the mouth of Prestwick's unopened tunnel waters when we hear of such vast sums being spent on one corner of London? Can he not urge his right hon. Friend and his colleagues in the Government to show the same liberality to Scottish road needs as is shown to London's? Can he say whether or not it is the case that there is a prospect of the estimated cost being revised in the upward direction?

Mr. Hay: I think that there is some difference between the possibility of a tunnel under the runway extension at Prestwick and this big scheme for the biggest traffic junction in the whole of the country. The hon. Gentleman has asked about estimates of cost. The original cost was £5¾ million but, as we have gone on, we have discovered that that can be reduced by £750,000 and I see no reason to expect that it will go up again.

Miss Herbison: Can the Minister use his influence to get even a small proportion of that sum for the A8 Glasgow—Edinburgh road where, in recent years, on only five miles of it, nineteen children have been killed because of the Government's refusal to give us a flyover?

Mr. Hay: My right hon. Friend has a number of responsibilities, but in this connection, at any rate, they do not extend to Scotland—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I was wrong in allowing the other supplementary question. Neither arose from the Question about the cost of the Marble Arch-Hyde Park Corner scheme.

Mr. Rankin: On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker. Is it not the fact that my supplementary question did arise from the Question, because I asked whether the estimated cost would have to be revised in an upward direction?

Mr. Speaker: I thought, on reflection, that it did not, but we need not argue about it, because it is all dead and buried now.

Mr. Rankin: Is the hon. Member aware that we do not grudge one penny of what is being spent on this London

project, but could not he allocate an odd farthing now and again to Scotland?

Mr. Hay: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman should have a look at the new Forth Bridge and remember what we are doing there.

A.56 Road (Manchester and North-East Lancashire)

Mr. H. Hynd: asked the Minister of Transport when he proposes to improve the main road A.56 between Manchester and north-east Lancashire.

Mr. Hay: We are investigating proposals for the comprehensive improvement of this road, but much preparatory work has yet to be done and it will inevitably be some years before construction can be started.

Mr. Hynd: In view of that reply, is the Parliamentary Secretary satisfied that "some years" is a sufficiently quick time to be getting on with the work? Is he fully seized of the importance of this key road in the plan to bring new industry to north-east Lancashire, where the cotton industry has been run down?

Mr. Hay: I am very well aware of the case, as the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. D. Jones) discussed it with me at some length a few weeks ago. The position is that this road carries a lighter volume of traffic than do many other industrial roads. For that reason, it was not included in the first phase of the road programme, but that does not mean that we shall not be able to include it in the next phase.

Mr. S. Silverman: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this road carries a lighter volume of traffic than some other roads precisely because it is unfit for more traffic than it now carries? Is he aware that of the 30 miles of this road between Manchester and Colne more than 20 miles are subject to a 30 m.p.h. speed limit? As this is the only road communication between Manchester and north-east Lancashire, and as northeast Lancashire depends on improving its communications to attract new industries, will he bear in mind that if we are to wait a few more years in addition to the quarter of a century that I have waited already there will be nothing at all left of industry in this part of Lancashire?

Mr. Hay: I am afraid that we still have a number of roads that are not fit for the volume of traffic that we would like to see on them, but that is a situation that we are trying to deal with as quickly as possible. We shall certainly keep in mind the claims of this road, for the very reasons mentioned by the hon. Gentleman.

Tyne Tunnel

Mr. Fernyhough: asked the Minister of Transport the estimated cost of the Tyne tunnel project; and his estimate of the number of persons who will be employed thereon.

Mr. Hay: It is estimated that the tunnel and its approach roads will cost £12·6 million. About 500 men may be employed on the tunnel and 300 on the approach works at the peak.

Mr. Fernyhough: Can the Joint Parliamentary Secretary say what proportion of the cost will be borne by the Government? Can he give an approximate date when the project will start? Will he try to let us get on with the approach roads as quickly as possible so that those now unemployed in Jarrow may be given the work which they are seeking?

Mr. Hay: As I have said, the total cost will be about £12·6 million. We shall make an outright grant of £3 million and the county councils jointly will contribute £1 million. We will also be advancing 75 per cent. of the balance, about £6·4 million, as a loan, and the councils will raise a loan in respect of the remainder, about £2·1 million. Both loans will be recovered from tolls to be levied on the traffic. The position about timing is that no contracts have yet been let as the project still requires the authority of Parliament The necessary Measure should receive the Royal Assent in July, in which case work would start in late autumn and would take about six years to complete.

Oral Answers to Questions — RAILWAYS

Road and Rail Services, Lancashire

Mr. Mapp: asked the Minister of Transport what proposals he has made to the committee of inquiry dealing with the organisation and structure of the British Transport Commission in regard

to the co-ordination of passenger road transport services in Lancashire with the rail services of the British Transport Commission.

Mr. Marples: None, Sir.

Mr. Mapp: Will the Minister kindly say how he thinks that a committee of inquiry can give a fair appraisal of B.T.C. services unless it takes into account questions of co-ordination of this kind?

Mr. Marples: What the committee of inquiry will take into account is another question. The Question on the Order Paper asks what proposals I have made.

Mr. G. Wilson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many bus companies have arrangements with British Railways for standing joint road-rail committees and that in Lancashire the two principal bus companies, Ribble Motor Services Ltd. and the North-Western Road Car Company Limited, have such a committee and have had it since 1929?

Mr. Marples: Yes, I am aware of that.

"Tutbury Jinnie"

Mr. Jennings: asked the Minister of Transport (1) if he has completed his promised investigation into the conduct of the inquiry in the case of the "Tutbury Jinnie"; and whether he will now make a statement;
(2) in view of the recent evidence, which has now been sent to him by the hon. Member for Burton, regarding the "Tutbury Jinnie", if he has yet come to a decision regarding the reference of this matter to the appropriate consultative committee.

Mr. Hay: The result of my investigation into this matter was communicated to my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Jennings) in my letter of 23rd May, and I have carefully considered the letters he sent to my right hon. Friend on 30th May. I am satisfied that there was no impropriety in the conduct of the inquiry, and I can see no justification for asking the West Midlands Consultative Committee to reopen the case.

Mr. Jennings: Is my hon. Friend aware that a Mr. George Dow, the area traffic manager for the Birmingham Area, sat


on that consultative committee as a member of the committee and as such stated the case for the British Transport Commission, answering the objectors' case and, in effect, as a member of the committee acting as an expert witness on behalf of the British Transport Commission? At the end of the proceedings, he then sat in judgment on the decision. Will my hon. Friend, in view of the evidence which I have sent to him, institute a new inquiry into the whole matter, since justice has not even been seen to he done?

Mr. Hay: My hon. Friend raised this matter in full on the Adjournment on 3rd May. In the course of that debate, he made the allegations which he has repeated today. I have fully investigated them and I have discussed the matter on two occasions since with my hon. Friend. I assure him that I am myself satisfied that there was no impropriety in this matter. Beyond that I cannot go this afternoon.

Superannuitants

Mr. H. Hynd: asked the Minister of Transport on what date, in implementation of his recent promise, he communicated with the Chairman of the British Transport Commission regarding the position of railway superannuitants; and what reply he has received.

Dame Irene Ward: asked the Minister of Transport whether he has yet received a reply from the Chairman of the British Transport Commission to the communication he undertook to make to him on the pensions of railway superannuitants; and what was the nature of the reply.

Mr. Marples: On 17th March last I drew the attention of the Chairman of the British Transport Commission to the views expressed on this subject by my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) on the previous day, but my letter did not call for any reply.

Mr. Hynd: As the British Transport Commission is apparently willing to fulfil the normal obligations to these people who are trying to live on out-of-date pensions but are unable to do so, is the Minister prepared to give the Commission some assistance in helping these people?

Mr. Marples: The Commission has made certain proposals which are under consideration, but this is part of the wider question of the reorganisation of the Commission, especially its finances.

Dame Irene Ward: Is my right hon. Friend aware that I have a letter from the Chairman of the British Transport Commission telling me that he has made representations to my right hon. Friend and expressing great concern about the position of these railway superannuitants? In view of the fact that the British Transport Commission wants something done, is my right hon. Friend prepared to take on the battle with the Treasury, having regard to the fact that our election pledge covered all pensioners?

Mr. Marples: I am, as always, obliged to my hon. Friend. I did know that the British Transport Commission had written to her because I received a copy of the letter, and I told the Commission that I would look at this letter in the light of the whole of the finances of the British Transport Commission.

Mr. Gunter: What are the channels of communication concerning these proposals between the Department and the British Transport Commission? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I have led deputations on this matter to his predecessor, and that so far we have received a lot of sympathy but no support? Would he bear in mind in any future discussions with the British Transport Commission that a number of these people, by reason of the conditions of service, were compelled to join the old railway superannuation fund but they now think that they would have been better off if they had never contributed a penny to the fund but had relied upon National Assistance? I am sure that that is not the Tory idea of the rewarding of thrift.

Mr. Marples: The channel of communications is that the British Transport Commission wrote to me making certain proposals and I replied stating that they are under consideration but, as I said in my answer, the whole question has to be considered in relation to the wider considerations now being given to the finances of the Commission as a whole.

Mr. Hynd: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I shall seek to raise the matter on the Adjournment.

Marylebone-Princes Risborough Line (Diesel Services)

Mr. Darling: asked the Minister of Transport to what extent, in making the capital allocation to the British Transport Commission for the railway modernisation programme, he considered the amount required for the introduction of diesel train services on the Marylebone, High Wycombe, Princes Risborough line, including alterations to stations, bridges and tracks, and new trains and oil installations; what provision he made for these purposes in his total allocation; and to what extent the cost of this part of the programme is to be met out of Treasury loans.

Mr. Hay: Allocations to the British Transport Commission are based on annual programmes of investment submitted by the Commission and covering the activities as a whole of that body. Expenditures on services such as those to which the hon. Member refers would come from within the allocation, and be financed either from the Commission's internal resources or by Exchequer advances.

Mr. Darling: Is the fact that the hon. Gentleman cannot give the figures for which I ask evidence that he and his right hon. Friend have sufficient confidence in the Transport Commission that it can go ahead without that Parliamentary scrutiny that was asked for early this morning? Is he aware that some of his hon. Friends have been pressing the Commission, quite rightly, to undertake this expenditure—although it is a small scheme it will mean heavy expenditure—no doubt on the grounds that what benefits their constituents is desirable, but that public expenditure that does not benefit their constituents is probably wasteful and extravagant, and ought to be stopped?

Mr. Hay: I have tried to answer the Question on the Order Paper. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I do not rise to the various types of bait he has cast over me in that supplementary question.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRANSPORT

Industrial Areas

Mr. Mapp: asked the Minister of Transport, in view of the increasing road congestion, and the fact that the road programme has not matched up with transport requirements, what proposals he has in mind for the setting up of new transport authorities for highly-populated industrial areas; what areas these proposals will cover; and when the necessary legislation is expected to be introduced.

Mr. Marples: The House will be aware of the arrangements for dealing with the traffic problems of London, where I have a special responsibility. Outside London the initiative in these matters rests with the local authorities.

Mr. Mapp: Will the Minister consider whether or not a preliminary survey might be made of such areas as south Lancashire, having regard to the principle of the London Passenger Transport Board? Do I gather that the Minister is now denying certain information which has been inserted in the papers in Lancashire?

Mr. Marples: I do not know anything about what has been inserted in local papers in Lancashire. I should like to see them. If Manchester and Oldham, for example, wish to get together and have a large transport unit, it is up to them to take the initiative and not up to Whitehall to dominate them. If they do that, I shall be quite prepared to consider whatever their plans are.

Mr. Benn: Is the Minister concerned with this, because it is widely recognised that the only possible answer to the problem of congestion is co-ordinated, supported and strengthened public transport services? Is this something where the Minister simply gives up the responsibility, or will he take any steps to bring that into being?

Mr. Marples: In this particular case, I think that some of the large towns such as Liverpool and Manchester are considered by many people to be large enough already, but if those concerned themselves wish to form, let us say, a Merseyside transport group or a group around Manchester, I should certainly be prepared to consider it.

Mr. Manuel: Has the Minister had consultations with his right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade on the location of new industry or the extension of industry in heavily populated areas which may cause further road congestion where congestion is already dense? If such discussions have not taken place, does he not consider that it would be possible in the future to help matters considerably if there were early discussions before locations were settled and more road congestion occurred?

Mr. Marples: I quite agree. Those discussions are taking place. In Scotland, the Secretary of State for Scotland and my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade are concerned. I deal with the President of the Board of Trade in England.

Abnormal Loads

Mr. Boyden: asked the Minister of Transport if, in view of the congestion and danger caused by wide loads on the roads, he will consider introducing a compulsory convoy system for all abnormally wide or dangerous loads, limiting their movement to the hours of 9 p.m. to 7 a.m., announcing their routes, and instituting regular police control of such convoys.

Mr. Marples: Notice of the proposed movement of all loads over 91½ ft. wide has to be given to the police, who have powers to direct changes in the time, date and route of the movement in the light of local circumstances, and may decide to escort and convoy particular loads. Loads over 20 ft. wide can already move only on the authority of individual special orders issued by me.

Mr. Boyden: Does not the right hon. Gentleman consider that the situation caused by these large vehicles is so serious that greater steps are required to deal with it? Is not the right hon. Gentleman letting his free enterprise doctrinaire notions run away with him to the detriment of human life? Could not the problem be tackled by vigorous administrative action to everybody's advantage? Could he not take some steps to restrict the amount of traffic in that way?

Mr. Marples: Let us get this matter quite straight. They may cause con-

gestion, but they rarely cause accidents because they are so slow. It is wrong to say that these big loads cause accidents. The police on the whole have the powers—they are applied, for example, in the City of Birmingham—and it depends on the local traffic authorities' police to decide what to do.
It may interest the hon. Gentleman to know that new proposals for control have been sent out in a circular letter which was issued by me on 24th May. It proposed certain controls on the movements of very long loads, which cause more congestion than wide ones, similar in extent to those relating to wide loads, and a special control by the Ministry on loads between 14 and 20 ft. wide, and I am waiting for comments on this.

Mr. Slater: In view of the heavy loads which are now being carried on the Al and the necessity for constant police patrols, could the right hon. Gentleman say who is meeting the cost of the police patrols which have to be assigned to these heavy loads?

Mr. Marples: That is a question for my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary.

Captain Pilkington: Is my right hon. Friend aware that these large loads cause accidents because of the amount of frustration which they cause to scores of drivers of vehicles following behind them?

Mr. Marples: My information is that they do not cause accidents. I grant that they certainly cause congestion and in some cases there have been infringements. There was a recent case, for example, at Evesham in which the person concerned said that a load was going to be 20 ft. wide and it turned out to be 22 ft. wide, which meant that the routing was wrong. That is now being considered by the local police.

Mr. Benn: Is the right hon. Gentleman saying that he is not concerned if the police provide escorts for these vehicles? Is it not a matter of great concern to him that there should be a subsidy for one form of transport as against the railways which have to operate paying for their own policing and security?

Mr. Marples: The heavy vehicles contribute an enormous revenue. All I am saying is that the police authority comes


under my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, and if the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) were in his place he would be indignant if I were to answer a question for my right hon. Friend.

Mr. W. R. Williams: Is it not clear from one's personal experience that there is no place on the modern congested road for vehicles of this size and the loads they carry? Would it not be better to come to a decision that the railways are a much more suitable form of transit for this type of traffic?

Mr. Marples: The odd thing is that even if these loads go on the railways they still have to go on the roads to get to their final destination.

Captain Pilkington: asked the Minister of Transport what recent reports he has had concerning the road congestion caused by the build-up of long queues of traffic, due to very slow-moving and very large bulk-carrying vehicles.

Mr. Marples: Reports about individual cases are made to me from time to time, by the police or highway authorities or by individual members of the public. I have had several such reports on a recent hold-up at Evesham.

Captain Pilkington: Although the Minister said last week that it was the custom for these slow-moving loads to pull into a lay-by and let the accumulated traffic behind pass, this is very seldom done. Will my right hon. Friend consider what he can do about this?

Mr. Marples: These large loads can at present move freely on the roads only if two days' notice is given to the police and the directions of the police as to time, date and route are followed. It is a matter for the police in the locality concerned to see that their directions are such that traffic is not impeded.

Mr. Benn: Is this not another example in which the Minister, although he has not administrative control, has responsibility for co-ordination? Has he made any representations through his right hon. Friend to local authorities about the rules that the police ought reasonably to lay down for the movement of heavy goods vehicles likely to cause congestion to other road users?

Mr. Marples: It is left to the discretion of the police. A general order would not be satisfactory because local authorities vary according to the roads that they possess. It is only in these areas that local traffic authorities and the police know the conditions. Any general rule would not be worth the paper that it is written on.

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Minister of Transport, in view of the obstruction, delay, danger and nuisance caused by the length, weight or nature of loads carried by heavy motor vehicles on the roads, what steps he has taken to satisfy himself that the existing regulations are adequate to meet the case.

Mr. Marples: The very largest loads may move only under individual special orders issued under my authority. I have just circulated for comment proposals for further controls on long loads and those over 14 ft. wide.

Mr. Sorensen: While the Minister's Answer gives some encouragement, does not he appreciate that my Question covers the complaints and observations of a large number of hon. Members on both sides? Is he satisfied that even the further regulations he is making will meet this very great danger and nuisance to motor traffic?

Mr. Marples: I think that they will go a long way on very wide and long roads

Cars (Bumper Bars)

Mr. Lipton: asked the Minister of Transport if he will make regulations to ensure that car bumpers are at a uniform height.

Mr. Hay: I do not feel that this is a matter for regulations. The motor industry is aware of the advantages of standardisation where possible, and the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders has made its views on this subject known to all manufacturers. Because of the wide variety of sizes of vehicles, however, it has not been found possible for all models to conform.

Mr. Lipton: Is it not ridiculous that in these days of growing congestion the manufacturers of private cars should fit bumpers of varying heights which afford no protection and sometimes cause one


car to become entangled with another? It is ridiculous and something should be done about it. Why does not the Minister get on with it?

Mr. Hay: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman could advise us on the way in which we could apply standards which would be appropriate both for a bubble car and a Bentley.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: Is my hon. Friend aware that with the enormous type of American car on the one hand, and the European type minicar on the other, the only protection that the minicar could have would be to have the bumper on top of the radiator?

Mrs. Slater: Is it not more important that the Ministry should consider introducing regulations governing the weight and strength of the bumpers, which is perhaps more important than standardisation?

Mr. Hay: That goes a little beyond my right hon. Friend's responsibility. I must emphasise that bumpers on cars are not really a safety measure. They are intended to provide protection for vehicles from damage.

Mr. Lipton: In view of the very unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I wish to give notice that I hope to raise the matter on the Adjournment.

Oral Answers to Questions — SHIPPING

Pontoon Docks, Aberdeen

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the Minister of Transport if he has yet received the report of the Aberdeen interests which he called together to study the problem of the pontoon docks there; if he will send it to the hon. and learned Member for Aberdeen, North; and what action he intends to take on it.

Mr. Hay: The answer to the first part of the Question is "No, Sir." We will consider the other two points which the hon. and learned Member refers to when the report has been received.

Mr. Hughes: Does the Minister agree that, when he takes the responsibility of calling these various interests together for the purpose of consultation, he has a responsibility to urge them to get on

quickly? This matter has been dragging on for a long time and is frustrating the solution of problems of industry and employment in Aberdeen. Will he, therefore, get the various interests concerned cracking on the job?

Mr. Hay: The hon. and learned Gentleman need not be too pessimistic about the lack of progress. The final meeting of the working group is taking place today. The appropriate committee of the British Transport Commission will consider its report on 15th June and the Harbour Board will consider it on 27th June. I think that we had better see those dates past before we go further.

Chandos Committee (Report)

Dame Irene Ward: asked the Minister of Transport if he will now make a statement on the Chandos Report.

Mr. Marples: As I said on 25th May in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. P. Williams), the Report of the Chandos Committee is confidential. But the Committee has prepared a summary which, with permission, I will circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT. I must make it clear that this in no way implies that the Government accept the proposals of the Committee, which are, however, being urgently considered.

Dame Irene Ward: As I cannot put a supplementary question on what my right hon. Friend is placing in HANSARD, may I ask my right hon. Friend whether, when we know what has been recommended and when the Government have made a decision, he will arrange matters through the usual channels so that views can be expressed by the House of Commons as to what it thinks of the recommendations? May we have an undertaking that the Government will not commit themselves before the House of Commons has had an opportunity of expressing its views?

Mr. Marples: My experiences at the Dispatch Box are that when a Report is published the views of the House are made abundantly clear.

Mr. Benn: Does not the right hon. Gentleman recognise that, if the House is to have a sensible debate on this


matter, it must have as much information made available to it as is available to the Government? Will not he reconsider the possibility of publishing the Report as it stands?

Mr. Marples: No, that would be impossible because it would mean breaking promises. A firm undertaking was given by my predecessor to Lord Chandos, namely, that the Report would be treated as confidential and would not be published. In turn, Lord Chandos gave a similar assurance to his colleagues on the Committee and to people who gave evidence before the Committee, and they gave away confidential information. In these circumstances the main Report of the Committee must remain confidential, but I am grateful to Lord Chandos for this summary which will give the conclusions to the world as a whole.

Mr. Shinwell: As the Chandos Report may make a considerable impact on the future of the shipping industry of the United Kingdom, surely before the Government come to a decision on whether the Cunard Steamship Co. Ltd. should receive a subsidy or a loan at a low rate of interest the House should have an opportunity of discussing it in general.

Mr. Marples: That question should be put to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House. I am certain that, if asked on Thursday after Questions, he will undertake to provide an opportunity for that.

Mr. Chetwynd: Can the Minister say what is the main conclusion of the Report? Are there to be one Queen, two Queens or what?

Mr. Marples: As the summary will be published in HANSARD tomorrow, perhaps the hon. Gentleman will read it.

Mr. Popplewell: Will the Minister take note of what his hon. Friend the Member of Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) said? Before the Government commit themselves, will the right hon. Gentleman ensure that there is a debate in the House on this matter? We in the North-East are very much perturbed about it. We are afraid that the Chandos Committee may recommend the closure of certain small shipyards

and that there should be concentration on the larger ones. We have memories of Shipbuilding Securities of days gone by. We do not want that to happen again. We should have a debate in the House on the principle involved.

Mr. Marples: The Chandos Committee's terms of reference had no relationships to closing down shipyards.

Dame Irene Ward: As my right hon. Friend's reply on the question of a debate is not satisfactory, may I ask him whether he will, as the responsible Minister, point out to the Leader of the House that, in the interests of the future of shipbuilding and shipping in this country, which are absolutely vital to our survival, there should be a debate before a final decision is taken? It is up to my right hon. Friend. He should not push it on to the House of Commons to make representations.

Mr. Marples: I should be most agreeable to a debate. If time can be found for one in the usual way I shall he delighted.

Following is the summary:

SUMMARY OF THE REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE PRESIDED OVER BY LORD CHANDOS]

1. We were asked to consider how the British express passenger service across the North Atlantic could best be maintained. The Cunard Company have a unique experience and a successful record in this service and we therefore assumed that if possible we should recommend a solution which would command the support of this Company, and its goodwill.
2. We have tried to forecast the future volume and composition of the trans-Atlantic traffic, and to take proper account of the likely scale and nature of competition both by sea and air. With the permission of the Government, we employed the services of the Economist Intelligence Unit to make a long-term survey of the trends likely to affect travel by sea, and of Research Services Ltd. to obtain an analysis of the reasons why passengers travel by sea today and to assess whether the same motives are likely to impel them in the future. We have consulted shipowners and other interests, as well as Cunard themselves. We have examined several different types and sizes of ships and also various types and patterns of service. In these enquiries we have had the help of the Government agency Y-ARD whose services, and particularly those of Mr. Norton, have proved invaluable.
3. The Cunard Company are firmly of the view that, in the face of the severe competition they will be likely to meet both from the air and from subsidised ships of other nations, any replacement ship, in order to provide a continuing attraction to passengers, must be of the highest standards and capable of making


the crossing in under five days. This in itself means that it would be of a size and speed which would make it unsuitable for any other service.
4. After long discussions with our professional advisers and with the Cunard Company, we have come to the conclusion—and the Cunard Company agree—that a ship having the following characteristics would best and most economically replace the "Queen Mary" and maintain the British express passenger service across the North Atlantic:

Gross tonnage: 75,000 tons.
Service Speed: 29½ knots.
Length overall: 990 feet.
Beam: 114 feet.
Draught: 30 feet 3 inches.
Passenger capacity: 2,270.
5. Our advice is that the cost of such a ship would be between £25 million and £28 million, though Cunard think it will probably be higher. Since Cunard have available only £12 million from their own resources to invest in the project, the Government would have to provide the remainder of the capital cost. We have agreed with the Cunard Company that if the Government should decide to do so, the financial arrangements which would best safeguard the interests of the taxpayer on the one hand and the Company on the other would seem to be as follows:—

Cost

(a) The agreement would be subject to the capital cost not exceeding £30 million.

Ownership

(b) The ship would be owned and operated by the Cunard Company through a separate Company to which the Cunard Company would subscribe £12 million as equity capital. The remainder of the cost, not exceeding £18 million, would be provided by the Government as loan capital. Alternatively the ship could be owned and/or operated by the Cunard Company so long as the Government were left in the same position as regards security and redemption as if the ship were owned by a separate Company.

H.M. Government's Loan Interest

(c) The loan would bear interest at 4½ per cent. per annum from the date on which the ship comes into service.

Redemption

(d) The loan would be redeemed by the operation of a 4½ per cent. sinking fund over twenty-five years.
(e) If the gross yield on the Cunard equity exceeds an average of 7 per cent., the excess would go to accelerate redemption of the Government loan.
(f) Cunard would have the right to redeem the outstanding balance at par at any time on reasonable notice.

Depreciation

(g) Depreciation would be at a rate of one-twenty-fifth of the capital cost per annum.

H.M. Government's Security

(h) On the assumption that the ship is owned by a separate subsidiary Company, the Government would have a charge on all assets and earnings of the Company, including accumulated depreciation funds. The use of depreciation funds would be subject to the approval of the Government. Equivalent arrangements should be made if the ship is not owned by a separate Company.

Construction

(i) The construction of the ship would he put out to open competitive tender with all appropriate shipyards.
(j) The loan would be interest free during the construction period, except that any Government money drawn in the first two years of that period would bear interest at 2½ per cent. for the remainder of the period.

Adjustment of Interest Rate

(k) If, from the beginning of the sixth year of service, the gross yield on Cunard's investment falls below 3 per cent. in any calendar year, then for each one-half per cent. fall the interest on the Government loan would be reduced by one-half per cent. for that calendar year.

6. We have not attempted to make any recommendations about the replacement of the "Queen Elizabeth" or the use of nuclear propulsion because such a recommendation would be premature. If, by the time when replacement of the "Queen Elizabeth" becomes necessary, no major change has occurred in the need for the maintenance of a British express sea service across the North Atlantic and in its prospects as a commercial service, we assume that H.M.G. would be prepared to assist in a manner appropriate in the circumstances. At that time experience will have been gained from the operation of the first ship, further knowledge of the effect of competition from the air will be available, and it will be possible to assess whether nuclear propulsion can be applied to passenger liners.

Chandos (Chairman).

John Hobhouse.

Thomas Robson.

J. N. Wood (Secretary).

May. 1960.

Shipbuilding (Orders)

Mr. Willey: asked the Minister of Transport the tonnage of vessels ordered by foreign countries from United Kingdom shipbuilding yards and the tonnage of vessels ordered by United Kingdom shipowners from foreign yards this year.

Mr. Marples: In the first quarter of 1960, licences were issued for some 26,000 tons gross of ships to be built in the United Kingdom for foreign owners. In addition, licences for some 18,000


tons gross were issued for Commonwealth orders. I have no official information about the tonnage ordered by United Kingdom shipowners from foreign yards, but I understand that in the first quarter of this year it totalled some 19,000 tons gross.

Mr. Willey: Those figures are an improvement. Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise that it is most disturbing that we are a net importer of new shipping? Will he make representations to British shipowners that they should play the game by British shipbuilding yards?

Mr. Marples: I have no doubt that they will read this in the shipping news, as usual. We have received orders from abroad for 44,000 tons and have placed orders abroad for 19,000 tons, a net gain to the industry in this country of 25,000 tons. If we were to impose any restrictions on British owners placing orders abroad, and if other countries took retaliatory action, the shipping industry would be harmed a great deal.

Mr. Willey: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I will endeavour to raise the matter on the Adjournment.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF DEFENCE

Strategic Reserve (Air Mobility Exercises)

Mr. de Freitas: asked the Minister of Defence whether he will invite Members of Parliament to observe the next air mobility exercise of the strategic reserve.

The Civil Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. C. Ian Orr-Ewing): I have been asked to reply.
My right hon. Friend is asking the Secretary of State for War to examine the possibility of doing this when plans for the next major exercise are being made.

Mr. de Freitas: Will the hon. Gentleman consider whether, as dozens of journalists are taken, it is possible to take half-a-dozen Members of Parliament? Surely it is very important that Members of Parliament should be informed and learn about these things when it is considered necessary to inform journalists of them.

Mr. Orr-Ewing: It is difficult to make definite promises because the dates of these large-scale exercises and the exact place where they will take place are not yet firm. My right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for War and the Secretary of State for Air are very sympathetic to this need.

Mr. Shinwell: When the Government come to a decision on this matter, how will they arrange the selection of Members to observe these exercises? Is it to be done through the usual channels and through the Whips, or will Members who are not on the establishment rota be entitled to apply to pay a visit?

Mr. Orr-Ewing: My experience is that the House of Commons has a very good way of arranging these matters. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman's voice will not be unheard and that his claims will not be totally overlooked.

Mr. Shinwell: It should be clearly understood that, if an attempt is made to adopt the old practice, there will be very strong protests from certain quarters of of the House.

Mr. Ross: Will the hon. Member give us a promise that no special privilege will be given to Privy Councillors in this matter?

Leave Centres (Racial Discrimination)

Mr. de Freitas: asked the Minister of Defence whether he has completed his inquiries into racial discrimination in leave centres administered by the Services; and whether he will make a statement.

Mr. C. Ian Orr-Ewing: I have been asked to reply.
Yes Sir. My right hon. Friend is now satisfied that no racial discrimination is exercised against Service personnel in any leave centre administered by the Service Departments.

Mr. de Freitas: In welcoming this change of policy, announced last month and reaffirmed today, may I remind the Minister that it was due directly to pressure from my hon. Friends who were informed of these discriminations as a result of letters from men in the Royal Air Force? Is this not another example of how well-informed Members of Parliament can benefit the Services?

Mr. Orr-Ewing: It would be true to say that originally this was a difficulty. It has now been overcome. Parliament is one of the ways for correcting administrative difficulties of this sort. I am glad that it has been cleared up.

Soviet Satellite

Sir Richard Glyn: asked the Minister of Defence, in view of the recent launching of a foreign space ship whose course passes over the United Kingdom, on how many occasions in the last three weeks a foreign aerial machine has violated British air space; what evidence he has as to the country of origin of the aerial machine concerned; and what action has been taken to shoot down or otherwise interfere with any such aerial machine.

Mr. C. Ian Orr-Ewing: I have been asked to reply.
I presume my hon. Friend refers to the Soviet satellite which was launched on 15th May. I understand that this satellite and its rocket passed over the United Kingdom thirty-five times between 15th May and 3 p.m. today. Issues of international law regarding air space are for my right and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary. The answer to the latter part of the Question is "None".

Sir R. Glyn: Will not my hon. Friend agree that, under the Chicago Convention, each nation has absolute and exclusive sovereignty over all the air space above its territory? This expressly applies to unpiloted as well as piloted planes. Is he aware that it is technically possible for an unpiloted plane to record by photograph or other means what is happening on the ground over which it passes and signal this back to its base? In those circumstances, may not this satellite be a substantial reinforcement to the very large number of Russian representatives, some in a privileged position, operating in a number of countries over which this satellite is passing?

Mr. Orr-Ewing: Questions of international law are not for me, but my hon. Friend may have noticed that the Lord Privy Seal made a statement in another place about this matter. He made it clear that a sub-committee of the United

Nations is studying the problem of sovereignty in outer space.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Will the hon. Gentleman be very careful, because he might shoot down an American space ship or satellite by mistake and might receive an explanation from Washington which will prove conclusively that George Washington, the man who never told a lie, no longer operates in Washington?

Military Tattoo, New York

Commander Courtney: asked the Minister of Defence what he estimates will be the cost of the military tournament and tattoo, to be held in Madison Square Gardens, New York, in conjunction with the all-British exhibition in June.

Mr. C. Ian Orr-Ewing: I have been asked to reply.
No estimate has been compiled by the Departments concerned, since the cost of the enterprise will be a prior charge on the proceeds of the tattoo and will not be borne by Service Votes.

Commander Courtney: While recognising that this military tournament is an admirable thing in itself, may I ask my hon. Friend whether he is satisfied that this very large sum of money represents a sound commercial investment in support of what I understand his right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade said is a privately sponsored British trade fair?

Mr. Orr-Ewing: I think that it is in every way admirable that we should show our allies and the world what the British Forces can do. This adds to the prestige and regard in which Britain is held. I can assure my hon. and gallant Friend that my right hon. Friend is satisfied that the Votes will not suffer.

Mr. Lipton: Would it not be a good idea if one or two hon. Members, including myself, could be invited to observe this particular experiment as well?

Mr. Orr-Ewing: I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is suggesting that he should pay for the trip himself. No doubt we could arrange an entry ticket for him if he could find himself in the right place at the right time.

QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS

Mr. S. Silverman: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I ask your indulgence to call your attention to Question No. 62, in my name, and to Question No. 59 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Exchange (Mr. W. Griffiths). I know that it is unusual to ask you whether a Minister can be allowed to answer these Questions, but in this case a personal question of very great hardship is involved. Unless some answer can be given today, or before the Houses rises, it will be too late, because the deportation which is being questioned will already have taken place. It would be a great pity if the House had no opportunity of getting information in time.

Mr. Speaker: I understand the point made by the hon. Member, but he knows the limits of my powers. All I can say is that I have had no request from the Minister to be permitted to answer either of these Questions.

Mr. Driberg: Since the Minister has clearly heard what has transpired, would you, Mr. Speaker, be prepared to hear him if he were to ask your leave to answer these two Questions and also, incidentally, Question No. 47?

Mr. Speaker: I do not like the Chair being made, if I may say so without disrespect to the hon. Gentleman, an instrument of blackmail.

Mr. Silverman: If the matter cannot be tackled in this way, Mr. Speaker, would you be prepared to advise my hon. Friend and me as to any way in which the matter could be ventilated before the House goes into recess? Could we perhaps have a short time on the Adjournment day, or something of that kind? It would be a great pity if we had no information in the House about this matter until it is too late.

Mr. Speaker: If the hon. Member desires to see me privately about this when I leave the Chair, I will be glad to consider it, but I must emphasise that,

in public at all events, it is not the duty of the Chair to advise but to rule about order.

Captain Pilkington: May I ask, Mr. Speaker, if you have had any request that Question No. 51, in view of its importance, should be answered?

Mr. Speaker: No. I must ask hon. Members to be a little careful about this practice, which seems to be becoming popular.

Mr. W. Griffiths: Reverting to Questions No. 59 and 62, Mr. Speaker, is not this a rather special case? I understand that my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) sought earlier this week to raise this matter as a Private Notice Question, and that he was informed that today the Foreign Office would reply and that there would be an opportunity. That opportunity has now passed. The Foreign Office—

Mr. Speaker: Had there been any application to table a Private Notice Question I should, presumably, have been informed about it. I have not been informed about such a move, and the hon. Member must be misinformed in that respect.

Mr. Grimond: On a further point of order concerning Question No. 47, Mr. Speaker. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House was kind enough to say yesterday 'that he would consider making a statement on the Cyprus negotiations before the House rises. Is it the Government's intention to make such a statement?

Mr. Speaker: Hon. Members, in the guise of a point of order, are asking questions of the Government. At present I see nothing happening except, I suspect, the right hon. Gentleman preparing to move the Adjournment.

ADJOURNMENT

Motion made, and Question, proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Redmayne.]

ROAD TRAFFIC (WHITSUN)

3.35 p.m.

The Minister of Transport (Mr. Ernest Marples): I am grateful for this opportunity of explaining to the House the measures on the roads that we propose during Whitsun. We have two objectives in mind—firstly, to increase road safety, and secondly—and this goes with it—to improve the flow of traffic.
After Easter we called a conference of the authorities concerned—the police, local highway authorities, some of the traffic authorities, the motoring organisations, and others. We held this conference in two stages. First, there was the main conference at national level, followed by a series of many conferences at local levels. It is not generally realised that many authorities are concerned with traffic. Enforcement is by the police; local traffic authorities have local knowledge; and the local highway authorities carry out improvements. It is not only the Ministry of Transport that is concerned.
We collected these bodies together, and I take this opportunity to say how grateful I am to all these authorities, both at national and local level, for the many hours of toil they have put in and for the benefit which we have had at the Ministry. Before I outline some of the proposals, I make two points. First, I would like these proposals to be seen in their right perspective. I would not wish either Parliament or the public to get the impression that the special measures we are proposing will cure all the many troubles in road safety. They will not. They are aids to safety. Legislation alone will never prevent accidents. We have clearways, speed limits, double white lines, road improvements and other measures, but these are not enough. Looking through the Institute of Advanced Motorists' booklet, I came across these words:
Road accidents do not just happen—they are caused, and the basic cause is human error
As long as we have human error, so long will we have accidents.
The measures which I shall outline will show what the Government are doing. I look at the reason for every single accident which results in a killing,

and the test that I apply is: what could I have done, as Minister of Transport, to prevent it? The depressing thing is that in the majority of cases no Minister of Transport of any political party could possibly have done anything, for human error, folly, and, in many cases, human miscalculation are the causes.
That is the case not only in this country but also in Europe. I recently attended a Conference of Ministers of Transport of seventeen European countries, and they have precisely the same problems as we have here. They have people going at excessive speeds, colliding with trees, going off the roads with no other car in sight, and involving the deaths of several people. No Minister of Transport can do anything about that.
There was a case in the Press two days ago. Three men were killed on a perfectly good stretch of road near Brighton. Men travelling at between 70 and 80 m.p.h. said in evidence that the other car had passed them doing 20 to 30 m.p.h. more, which means that that car was travelling at about 100 m.p.h. That car crashed on a bend. The local surveyor said that it was an easy bend to get round at 65 m.p.h., and that the road was perfectly made and perfectly safe. Yet three men were killed and the car split in half.

Mr. Frank McLeavy: Did the road have a speed limit?

Mr. Marples: There is no speed limit on that road. This was a human error. But merely putting on a speed limit does not mean that one can always enforce it. There is no point in having regulations if they are virtually unenforceable. I want to make it quite clear that we must put this very serious problem in perspective. There is no magic wand, or single dramatic step, or simple, easy remedy.
My second point is that in my speech I can only outline the principles of what we are doing. We have prepared for the Press a 20-page notice, with two maps. Twenty copies have been placed in the Library for hon. Members to see. This had to be done because a large number of the roads concerned affect the Provinces, and it is necessary for the Press to publish it by tomorrow morning


if it is to be effective at Whitsun. All the details are there for hon. Members to read.

Mr. Edward Short (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central): The right hon. Gentleman has just quoted the brochure of the Institute of Advanced Motoring. May I, as a director of the Institute and as a founder, congratulate him on passing the test? Will he do all in his power to encourage other motorists to take the test?

Mr. Marples: I really am grateful for that intervention and I will tell the hon. Gentleman why. I am quite certain, from inquiries I have made in my Department, that if people would take that test it would prove the greatest single contribution to reducing accidents. There is no doubt about it at all. If everybody followed the instructions which are given there, it would do a great deal of good. I will go so far as to say to the hon. Gentleman that I will give all the help possible. I will make it easy for any hon. Member of this House to take the test, if hon. Members wish. I have asked the Parliamentary Secretary to take it, and I have asked my Parliamentary Private Secretary to take it.

Mr. Charles Pannell: What about the Patronage Secretary?

Mr. Marples: I am hoping my wife will take it, but I dare not suggest it myself. I hope someone else will suggest it.
Now I will come to the arrangements which have been made. First of all, on certain trunk roads there is to be a 50 m.p.h. speed limit, on 150 miles of trunk roads, for four days commencing at 6 o'clock on Friday morning. I had better say why I have chosen those roads and why we propose it for that short period.
The area affected can be divided into two parts: London, and outside London. Inside the London Traffic Area the 50 m.p.h. speed limit will be prescribed in regulations made under Section 10 of the London Traffic Act, 1924, as amended by Section 63 of the London Passenger Transport Act, 1933, and by Section 51 and paragraph (4) of the Eighth Schedule to the Road Traffic Act, 1956. After 1st September, when the Road Traffic Act, 1960, comes into force,

these powers will be reproduced as Section 34 of that Act. Regulations have been made and laid before Parliament, and are subject to negative Resolution. Before we made these regulations, we consulted the London and Home Counties Traffic Advisory Committee. We consulted it on Tuesday, 17th May, and it welcomed the proposal and hoped that it would be successful. The Secretary of State has also agreed to the making of the speed limit.
Outside London there is another procedure. The 50 m.p.h. speed limit will be imposed by order under powers in Section 46 (2) of the Road Traffic Act, 1930, as applied by Section 3 of and Part I of the Third Schedule to the Trunk Roads Act, 1936, and as amended by Section 33 of the Road Traffic Act, 1956. These powers are conveniently set out in Secton 26 of the 1960 Act, which does not come into force till later. There is no procedure for this order to be laid before Parliament.
I have mentioned all that because I wanted the House to know that there is a legal basis for this speed limit, and I wanted the country to know it, too.
First of all, this is an experiment on 150 miles of trunk roads. We have chosen the trunk roads because they are under the direct control of the Minister, whereas classified roads come under local highway authorities. We have chosen those portions of the trunk roads where there is a large volume of traffic at Bank Holidays— for example, the London-Maidstone-Folkestone trunk road, the A.20, and the London-Southend road, the A.12, and the A.127. We have chosen parts of the trunk roads which have a bad accident record. They have been very carefully selected on this ground and because comparison can be made with what 'happened during previous Bank Holidays, especially Easter and last Whit week.
As regards enforcement, which I know hon. Members regard as a key to the matter, as indeed it is, we had a meeting in London with most of the chief constables concerned, and I was present at that meeting, which took place through the kindness of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. The chief constables agreed to get every man they could out on duty for the Whit weekend. They


agreed to do their best about enforcement. I left to their judgment what measures were best according to local conditions. For instance, I read in the newspaper that there would be a radar check on speed at one point, and that there would be police motor cyclists on another road.
They are going to observe very carefully what happens on those roads and compare it with what happened previously. That will be a great help. We must be very careful to note whether the beneficial results are solely due to the speed limit. They may be due to the mere presence of a larger number of policemen, which can have a good effect. I have asked the chief constables to take into account haw many extra men they put on duty so that we can make a correct assesment of what happens.
We have 2,000 signs going out. They are of pretty large construction, 2 ft. 6 in. by 1 ft. 9 in.
I have been asked many times why I chose these roads. First, we could not have enforced this limit on all roads, so we picked out the busiest to try to make a job of it on those sections. I shall be very interested if hon. Members who go along those roads over the Whit weekend will let me have their personal experiences. I myself am going along them to see what happens.
The reason the speed limit of 50 m.p.h. was chosen was this. Most of the accidents do not take place during the middle of the day when there are pedestrians about. They take place later in the evening, when people are returning from the seaside. If there is congestion people may call at the "local", saying, "We will have a drink till the congestion is over". Then when they come out they start overtaking rapidly because then there is a chance to overtake. That is when accidents occur, and that is when the police are going to enforce the speed limit. I am hoping it will be effective. That is the first part of the scheme.
The second thing we are going to do is to initiate clearways—

Mr. Wedgwood Benn: I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman would mind clarifying what he has just said. Was he indicating by any chance, in that last sentence of his, that the police are not going to enforce the 50 m.p.h, speed limit at certain

periods of the day? The right hon. Gentleman rather gave that impression.

Mr. Marples: No; certainly not. They are going to enforce it, as I said, at the discretion of the chief constables. There may be certain times of the day when there is no need for enforcement because of congestion, when nobody can go at 50 m.p.h., but it will be enforced at times when people can exceed the limit, and then enforcement of the law will stand. I have said that it will be illegal to go over 50 m.p.h. I have made that wholly clear. If this helps to remove misunderstanding, I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman.
On the question of clearways, I have put in the Library two maps which show where the extensions of the clearways are. A clearway, as the House knows, is a road where stopping is prohibited at all times. There are various stretches of trunk roads where parked vehicles can create accidents, impede traffic and cause unnecessary hold-ups. A large number of accidents take place there because of stationary vehicles, which force other vehicles to pull out into the road. There are accidents caused in that way. I have been astonished by the statistics.
On the Southend trunk road, the A.127, in three years there were 1,155 accidents in which standing vehicles were involved. Eighty per cent. of the accidents involved moving vehicles; 20 per cent. of them involved standing vehicles—I was astonished at that figure—and they accounted for one-third of the deaths. This is very serious.
These clearways have been absolutely first-rate. The police are satisfied with them, and the motoring organisations like them. I have not heard any complaint from motorists about them. Of course, they can be adopted only on certain roads of considerable traffic importance. It is no use having them where there is not a great volume of traffic, in which case the restrictions could bear unreasonably. They are mostly where there are no traffic signals and no pedestrian crossings, on roads not subject to the 30 m.p.h. limit, and where there are comparatively few accesses to the main road. The fewer accesses there are, the better the scheme works. There must be provision for lay-byes and also, for instance, places where buses draw in. It


is no use having them where buses stop suddenly on the road.
We have been at great pains to carry out improvements on trunk roads so as to be able to extend the clearways. The 50 m.p.h. speed limit on trunk roads is an experiment for four days, and we will watch it carefully. The clearways are a permanent feature of road safety, and I hope they will be extended. The initial experiment was over fourteen lengths on four trunk roads, and now we are having sixteen additional lengths, which I think will play a great part this Whit week in helping the police and in reducing accidents.
I want to say that the six chief constables concerned with the first experiment have made a report, which shows that the prohibition of waiting is being well observed, and that no problems of enforcement have arisen. Only two cases in which it has been necessary to take proceedings have been reported. I think that shows how generally it has been accepted by motorists. So far as accidents are concerned, the Chief Constable of Kent reports a substantial decrease on two clearways in his county, and what is very interesting as well is that he also noted a marked reduction in the severity of injuries, which again is a good thing.
This, of course, requires Parliamentary procedure. Regulations have already been laid before Parliament. They were made on 19th May, and will come into effect on 3rd June. I think that will make a great deal of difference over Whitsun, and we are hoping to increase the clearways as we make further surveys.
Now I come to another series of actions which have been taken largely as a result of great detailed work by the various local authorities. At the moment, most people in cars tend to take the same route to wherever they go. They rarely read maps and find an easy way. They do not seem to be inclined to read maps, and if one goes to one of the motoring organisations, one generally gets the same route. These organisations have been most helpful, and I should like to pay my tribute to them in this respect.
We have already got forty long-distance routes, that is, to the coast and different places, which are alternative routes to

the main routes that are obvious. We set about seeing if we could increase them, and we have managed to increase them by another twelve, which means that twelve routes, important long-distance routes, will be signposted by Whit week by the A.A. and R.A.C., and the police have agreed to it. Again, I wish to pay tribute to those local authorities which have co-operated in allowing their classified roads to he used for this purpose.
I should like to tell the House that I have had the utmost co-operation, with one very sorry exception. I will not mention the local authority, because I am still hopeful of persuading it, but the chairman of the local authority will not allow his classified roads to be signposted as alternative routes, although they are perfectly good for light traffic. I have no power to compel him. This is on a trunk road where there is very often a queue eight miles long, but I am still hopeful of persuading him.

Mr. C. Pannell: The right hon. Gentleman refers to "his classified roads". Is it not possible for the Minister to remind some local big-wig that this is a public highway?

Mr. Marples: I quite agree with the hon. Gentleman, but the local authority is the traffic authority, and not me. In other words, I cannot dictate to it, but I think that it is tragic that a man should allow parochial interests to override the national interest. I do not want to divulge who it is, because I am hopeful of persuading him, but I think I can take the House with me in saying that I hope to succeed in persuading him.

Mr. Pannell: Cannot the Minister tell him that if local interests are allowed to stand in the way, we will see that a little bit of local imperialism on our part will do him a world of good?

Mr. Marples: I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, which will be recorded in HANSARD and will show that most hon. Members of the House agree with me in this respect.

Hon. Members: Hear, hear.

Mr. Marples: Now I come to another point, which concerns the new white lines. Here we have gone over most of the trunk roads and they have been


marked. I believe that these white lines are of great value to all motorists, and that the double white lines round bends are of great importance. We have to be careful that we do not have excessive or injudicious use of white lines or a proliferation of pedestrian crossings, because that leads to a lack of respect for them and also to the problem of enforcement.
On new white lines, we have done a great deal. We have worked overtime, so that by Whit week we shall be able to indicate on the roads what motorists should do. To give one example of what has taken place since Easter, in Oxfordshire there are twenty-six miles—sixteen miles on A.423 Oxford to Banbury and ten miles on A.34. We have other signs, such as the broken white lines on entering main roads. We have also signposted "No Overtaking" at different points where it is dangerous. These are entirely new signs since Easter. For example, we have "No Overtaking" signs at dangerous points. In West Sussex, there are two on A.24—Beaufort-Southwater—on hills; one on A.29 at Slynfold; one on A.286 at Singleton; and one on A.27 at Crocker Hill. We have been energetic on the question of lines.
Another question with which we have had to deal this Whitsun is that of traffic signals.

Sir Godfrey Nicholson: May I ask whether my right hon. Friend has any policy regarding the application of "Halt" signs? I find that at crossroads there are "Halt" signs which do a tremendous amount of good, in my opinion, but in some counties they seem to have them only at "T" junctions. Why should they not be applied to all crossroads?

Mr. Marples: Again, the initiative there rests with the local traffic authority, which knows the local position, but if my hon. Friend has any case and will send particulars to me, I will ask the local authority concerned to direct its attention to it.
Traffic signals are normally set for ordinary traffic, but the balance of the traffic is radically altered on Bank Holidays. Although the signals are correctly phased for normal traffic, we find that they are inconveniently phased for holiday traffic, and we generally find a police-

man struggling and trying to take charge of the situation. An engineer in the Ministry of Transport has invented a device which a policeman can turn on and which automatically for the next ten or fifteen minutes alters the setting of the signals and gives a longer phase on green to the main road. For example, sometimes the normal setting for the green light is fifteen to fifty seconds, according to the known traffic load, but the new device will enable between 90 and 120 seconds to be added to the green phase.
I think the House will be interested if I give a few examples of where this device will be operating during Whit week. On A.2, London-Dover, there will be two installations, at Chatham and Rochester. On roads from London westward, there will be installations at Camberley (2), Amesbury, Farnham, Maidenhead, and Haslemere. In the north of England, which often gets forgotten in our deliberations, on A.6, Manchester to the North-West, there will be five installations, at Clayton Green, Hillthorpe, Broughton, and two at Kendal. There will be two at Wellington in Shropshire and quite a number of others. They should help us very much towards making the best use of our roads, not only according to space but according to time.
On temporary diversions, we have had a real blitz. Remembering the old Army phrase that the time spent on reconnaissance is seldom wasted, I think that it is quite useless when there is a traffic jam for somebody to think of a temporary diversion at the last moment. It is then too late to be any good; and it should have been done earlier. Local A.A. and R.A.C. men, who have a great deal of knowledge of what happens, and the local police, have had many consultations, and have already decided on what diversions should be adopted, so that they are now in a position to know what they will do in any given circumstance. It is a very flexible thing. It will have to be applied locally on the spot.
Another item to which we have paid great attention is road works. Nothing is more irritating than seeing a hole in the road which causes a single line of traffic and nobody working on it. Some weeks ago we asked all statutory undertakers and highway authorities to phase the work so that there will be as few


obstructions as possible over Whit week. I know of many instances where we have had co-operation.
At this stage I should like to explain to the House that I am trying not to take up too much time, because I want to listen to suggestions from hon. Members. However, I want to deal with two other points, the first being new roads. This factor is often forgotten in the House, and when supplementary questions are asked one often thinks that there is not a new road being built anywhere in England. There are quite a number of items coming along which will help enormously. For example, there is the eastern section of the Maidstone by-pass. There is an excellent article in the Daily Express this morning saying that it takes only a few minutes on the by-pass, whereas it took forty minutes on the old route. I am not quite certain of the time factors.
That sort of thing will be the permanent remedy in such situations, and I am the first to admit it. I am also the first to admit that we must press on as fast as we can. Many items, such as the Maidstone by-pass, have come into operation since last Whit week. Only recently there has been the Shere by-pass. What could be done in the little town of Shere with much traffic on narrow roads? The only thing was a by-pass. There is one at Harlow, and another at Lichfield. The details of these are in the statement which I have placed in the Library.
Then there are road improvements. For example, at Exeter a roundabout has been enlarged to a diameter of 190 feet. Many of these improvements will be open for Whit week. They are being opened continuously. I remind the House and the country that many more will flow. For example, there are the improvements between Chepstow and Newport on the London—Fishguard road, the A48. They are due to be completed within the next few weeks—just after Whit week, but in time for the next holiday. Many others, for example that at Norwich, will be coming into operation. We have tried to push on and speed up the work on items like the Maidstone by-pass so that they can be useful for Whit week. Those are some of the things which we are trying to do.
I also want, to tell the House that we went into many ideas which have been suggested, but were not able to bring them to a successful conclusion. I will give one illustration. We had long consultations—my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary did a great deal of work on this—with the A.A., the R.A.C., the police and the B.B.C. The idea was that, if there was a traffic pileup anywhere, the B.B.C. could broadcast where it was on the Light Programme, as they do on the Continent and in America, and then motorists could be diverted elsewhere. They would have the necessary knowledge before it was too late. We ran into practical difficulties there on compiling the information accurately and sending it speedily to the B.B.C. It was with great reluctance and regret that unanimously the police, the motoring organisations, the B.B.C., and ourselves came to the conclusion that we would not do it; but we are to have another shot at it later.
I should like to end, as I began, by saying first how grateful we are to all the voluntary organisations which are doing all this work, to the police, to local highway authorities, and to all those people who have worked so hard in the Provinces and in London.
Secondly, this is a contribution and something the Government are doing, but we must never forget—we come back to this always—that it is the human factor which causes most accidents. We cannot get away from that. Unless we face fairly and squarely the causes of accidents, we shall never be able to find the remedy. I know of the criticism which takes place of my Ministry in general and of me in particular, and I should be surprised if it did not, just as a referee on a football field would be very surprised if everybody in the crowd was not a better referee than he. However, it is doing a disservice to keep asking what the Government are doing about it, unless we recognise that it is the human element which causes accidents. If we blind ourselves to the real causes of accidents, we shall prevent ourselves applying the correct remedy. That is the danger of such a criticism.
I hope that the House will approve of the suggestions, especially when hon. Members have read the details of what we propose to do. I should like to


listen to the suggestions of hon. Members. Every one will be received with gratitude and examined carefully, and I hope that these suggestions commend themselves to the House.

4.5 p.m.

Mr. Wedgwood Benn: I want to begin by paying a tribute to the Leader of the House for having arranged the debate in the form in which it is being taken today. Very often Ministers make important statements at half-past three, questions are put, and after a short period you, Mr. Speaker, have to remind the House that no Question is before it. The procedure for a short period on the Adjournment, with the Motion to be withdrawn at Six o'clock, is an excellent and flexible way of tackling the statement which the Minister has made this afternoon.
It is a very good thing that Parliament should take precedence over a Press conference when it comes to arrangements of the kind which have been announced today. On the other hand, I have one complaint to make. The Press release which has been in the Library for the last thirty-five minutes is a very long document containing much information which will affect hon. Members in their own constituencies. It would have been helpful if this had been made available twenty-our hours before the debate so that hon. Members could have discussed this subject in the light of detailed knowledge. Perhaps this is something which we can tackle on another occasion.
I wish to join the Minister in his appeal for road safety this Whitsun. Road safety is not in any sense a party matter, and we all wish that people would exercise the care, attention and thoughtfulness which are so necessary if we are to reduce the number of accidents.
Having said that, I must add in honesty to the House that there are no grounds for optimism that our appeals will have any effect. Public holidays are now well established as periods of ritual slaughter, and the numbers are predictable. In 1959, 370 people died on public holidays. Even the Minotaur of Minos called only for seven men and seven maidens every nine years, the Encyclopaedia Britannica tells me, but public holidays in this country cause a great number of deaths every year.
There is something rather grim about the whole debate, with all the exhortations it will contain, because we are in a sense all involved as part of the preparation for the deaths there will be over Whitsun. Even as we talk this afternoon, the old car which should never be on the roads is being taken out of the garage, or the tarpaulin is being removed, and its owner is preparing to go to Southend with his family in it The new motor bicycle which should never be in the hands of someone without proper training will be driven on the roads for the first time.

Sir G. Nicholson: With an L-plate on it.

Mr. Benn: With an L-plate on it, but no previous training. The hip-flask is being filled for the man to have a nip in case he is delayed in traffic when he comes home. The child is preparing to ride her mother's bicycle which is too big for her. The pram is being prepared for the Whitsun holiday, with its brake in such a condition that it may lead to the baby falling into the middle of the road.
All the victims of these road deaths would agree with us about the necessity for safety, but none of them believes at this moment, even those who are to be killed, that it could possibly affect them, even less that they are likely to be the cause of a death.
It is in this light that we have to examine the Minister's proposals. I should like to explain to him that, although I propose to be very critical of what he has brought forward, we are grateful for what is being done. We are grateful that there is to be a 50 m.p.h. speed limit, although it will be over only 150 miles. We are grateful that there is to be a no-parking rule over 65 extra miles of trunk road to provide clear roads. We are grateful for the alternatives routes. We are grateful for the double white lines. We are grateful for the device which will be fitted on to a couple of dozen traffic lights to make it a little easier. We are grateful that road works are to be minimised.
Measuring what is being done against the magnitude of the problem leads one to only one conclusion, namely, that the Minister's plans are bitterly disappointing. We are entitled to expect a great deal more. What I find most


irritating of all is that in the list of road improvements given in the Press statement, seventeen road improvements are listed, of which only five are complete. Nine are unfinished and another three are being discussed in the hope that contracts will be issued soon. These plans are not sufficient grounds for leading us to believe that this Whitsun will be any better than any past Whitsun.
I want to put forward three ideas which it is still, perhaps, not too late to consider, but which I had very much hoped the Minister would bring forward. The first relates to tidal flow. Anyone who has visited the United States knows that tidal flow control of traffic is one of the basic principles of sensible traffic engineering. On his visit to America, the Minister came across tidal flow and spoke about it, and we admired him for doing so. This Whit-sun holiday is a good possibility to begin tidal flow studies. The Whitsuntide flood of traffic is entirely tidal. It goes out of the cities in the morning and it comes back at night. I had very much hoped that when the roads were being marked for Whitsun, tidal methods would be used, if only experimentally, to see how well they worked.
I do not go so far as to say that a whole trunk road could be made tidal over Whitsun, but there are certain stretches of road, particularly three-lane highways, where it would be possible to have a tidal flow out and back. All that would be required would be police cars going along the road dropping little flags, as in the United States, to indicate that the road is more readily available each way when it is most needed. After all that the Minister has said about tidal flow, I am disappointed that he appears not even to have thought of its application to the Whitsun problem.
Secondly, roads are not the only method of transport. There are many motorists—I am not sure that I am not one—who would much rather go away for the Whitsun holiday by train than by road. The Minister is, after all, the Minister of Transport. His responsibility does not end with roads. One of the solutions to the problem of congestion and safety at Whitsun is to make better use of the railways, but there is no mention in the Minister's speech that he has consulted the railways.
What form of help can be given? The railways are running special trains and doing all that they can, but if we want people to go by train we must make it easy for a man to get to a railway station, leave his car and go by train for his holiday. What I had hoped we would to told today was that around the big termini in big cities there would be special car-parking facilities to encourage people to use their cars to go on holiday, but to take their family to the station, where their cars could be accommodated in special car parks, and continue their journey by train. This is the Minister's responsibility. He covers the whole of transport, but he has said nothing about that.
My third proposal, to which the Minister referred casually but inadequately, is that, for the first time this Whitsun, we should use radio to control traffic movement. The police and the A.A. already use radio to control the controllers of traffic. We are now in a position where we could, for the first time, contemplate devoting the whole of the Light Programme over Whitsun—let us take it at the highest level—to bring the public into co-operation with the management and control of traffic.
There are now 430,000 car radios in operation. Eight per cent. of all the cars have radios. Therefore, one out of ten of all cars, and possibly more, at Whitsun would be within radio communication with the B.B.C. I have discovered also that 4 million portable radio sets have been sold in the last few years. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to say that most people who go on holiday could be brought within some sort of elementary control, at least experimental control, to see whether they could not be guided in their use of the roads.
I should like to see the Light Programme entirely cancelled and to have substituted for it a continuous programme of traffic information, with news of jams, where they occur and how they develop; alternative routes, even simply reading the alternative routes that have already been laid down; road safety hints; reminders of road safety requirements; weather information and other information of use to motorists. If this were done, it would prevent the jams from developing, because a man would rather


spend an extra hour at the seaside if he knew that, as a result of waiting, he would be likely to get home more rapidly. The excuse given by the Minister that this is technically difficult is no reason for not experimenting with it. If we ask the public to co-operate in a project as grand as this, they will understand if it does not altogether succeed, but we should at least get the basic information about how to use this technique at the August Bank Holiday.
Those are three concrete ideas, not one of which involves special legislation or anything difficult. First, we should try to experiment with tidal flow at Bank Holidays. Secondly, we should co-ordinate with the railways so that parking is available for oars near railway stations. Thirdly, we should experiment with the radio control of all traffic over the holiday period.
Although these are methods to help the motorist for his convenience and to encourage him to drive more safely, they do not solve the problem. Although this is not in any sense a party argument, the Minister and I are on totally different sides of the question. Could the Government do more? We all realise that laziness, forgetfulness and human error account for many accidents. As the Minister said, there is not one easy way of reducing the number of accidents on the roads; but although there may not be one easy way, there are 100 different ways in which minor improvement could be made.
I do not take the Minister seriously on road traffic and road safety, because I do not believe that he is doing what he could to make use of the other methods that could produce a serious reduction in road accidents. When the Minister says that everything is attributable to human nature, he flies against the experience of many other countries which have produced sensational reductions in road accidents by the use of Government measures. To put it plainly to the House, Britain trails far behind other countries in its road safety measures.
At Easter, my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish)—who regrets that he is not able to be here today and has asked me to say so—and I wrote to the Minister proposing ten definite things that could be done.
We received a reply, which was rapid and courteous, but the Minister said that panic measures were not right. Later in the House, the Minister said that we had done a disservice in drawing attention to this matter and describing it as a national disaster. When one realises that the figures for Easter have now been upgraded to 97 instead of 87, I consider that the Minister himself has done a disservice in criticising those of us who have tried to get something done.
I want now to go through ten reasons why I do not believe that Britain takes road safety seriously, even today. I begin by saying that there is in Britain today no control over the standards of safety built into new vehicles. There is, of course, consultation. If the British Motor Corporation makes a car, it tries to make it safe, but there is no law by which a prototype of a vehicle is submitted to the Government for a roadworthiness certificate in the way that an aircraft is submitted to the Ministry of Aviation.

Mr. R. Gresham Cooke: There are, of course, a whole lot of construction and use regulations in accordance with which any manufacturer, whether a large corporation or a small firm, must build a car before it is allowed on the road.

Mr. Benn: Yes, but there is not a road worthiness certificate for prototype vehicles. They have to fulfil certain conditions, but there is no overall testing and approval of prototypes before mass production. I think that there should be. In matters of visibility, safety belts, doors that should not fly open, trying to protect the panel so that what is called the second collision between the head and the panel does not lead to death, standardisation of signals and greater safety for handbrakes, there is no overall testing when there should be, before a vehicle is approved for manufacture.
Secondly, there is in Britain no control of the maintenance of a vehicle. For four years, we have waited for vehicle testing, which we have argued many times in the House. My right hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss) has done more than anybody to bring it to the attention of the Minister. Now we are told that it is to begin in July, but it will be only for old vehicles. In


New Zealand, vehicles are tested every six months, because brakes and other apparatus can get defective in a much shorter period than ten years. In West Germany and other countries, there is testing of this kind. Why not have it in this country? Until the Government show signs of taking this matter seriously, we are not entitled to take them seriously.
The third point is that there is inadequate control of the use of vehicles. A man came to see me the other day who said that he had been running a road haulage business for many years. What worried him was the overloading of vehicles, over which there is no control. He said that he did not want to overload, but that competitive overloading was practised, and there was no statutory authority to impose the safety load laid down by the manufacturer. His suggestion was that there should be a Plimsoll line, as it were, for road vehicles and that the overloading of any vehicle above the original specification of the manufacturer should be an offence.
The fourth item is the question of drunken driving. The Government get out of this easily—at least, they 'have done in the past, although the present Minister has done more to publicise the problem—by saying that figures are not available but without proper tests for drunkenness one never knows how big a part drunkenness plays in road accidents. There has been a great delay in doing anything about this. Again, we have fallen behind many other countries, including the Scandinavian countries and many American States. Not only are we slow in diagnosing drunkenness, but we are very slow in punishing it. When we have asked the Minister to say that there should be a mandatory prison sentence for people convicted of drunken driving, which is the minimum protection to which the public are entitled, he tells us that the powers exist if the courts want to use them. We do not accept that the courts should have the right not to sentence a man to gaol when he is convicted of drunken driving.
This does not call for any breathalyser. I am speaking now of the motorists who are convicted of drunkenness even under

our existing inadequate laws. Lord Goddard pointed out in the House of Lords in 1957 that of 3,025 cases of convicted drunken driving, only 153 men went to gaol. Here again, we are far behind other countries which have taken drunken driving much more seriously.
I read in the paper the other day a report about the Hammonds United Breweries, who held a three-day course for public house landlords. Part of the course, it was said,
would be devoted to the preparation of Scotch eggs, sausages, pies and pickled eggs
because
a last snack can be a great help to car drivers. It acts like blotting paper… We are great believers that a snack before leaving a public house at closing time is a good thing.
It was said that a snack tended to waken people up and could be a great help to car drivers by helping them to sober up. The acceptance by a group of breweries that the drunken driver is such a problem that if his custom is to be attracted in the future and he is to be made safe, he had better be given sandwiches to act as blotting paper for his drink, is absolutely contrary to the public interest. We call upon the Government to do something about it and not to say that this is human error about which the Government can do nothing. What the Government can do is to have a standard test, as many other countries have, and a mandatory gaol sentence.
Indeed, Canada has road blocks at night. Drivers are made to get out of cars and are given tests. If they are found to be drunk, they go to gaol. This is not an anti-motorist device but is in the protection of passengers, police, pedestrians and everybody. It is based on the belief, which I hold, that the road is different from simply the old idea of the highway. Today, the road is a heap of land where dangerous activities go on and where, as with the pilot of an aircraft, in the interests of safety one expects certain clear requirements to be fulfilled.

Sir G. Nicholson: Has the hon. Member considered that very often it is not the drunken driver who is the main danger, but the driver who has taken just a little drink? Has the hon. Member considered that whenever there is an accident, the police should find out confidentially, not for publication,


whether the person in question has been drinking even though no charge of drunkenness is brought?

Mr. Benn: The breathalyser was developed in this country by Dr. Gorsky in the 1920s, and, as in the case of many other things, we shall be the last country to apply it. If we had something like the breathalyser it would give the police all the proof they needed. They would not have to snoop around the "Cock and Bottle" to see whether somebody had "one for the road" before leaving. This is the first requirement in the effort to tackle the problem of drunken driving.

Mr. R. T. Paget: With the automatic drunkenness test, and with automatic gaol afterwards, would it be with or without a trial? Is it simply a matter of police action? Secondly, if there were a trial, does my hon. Friend realise how appallingly difficult it might be to persuade a jury to convict? Juries nowadays are composed mainly of motorists, and it will be difficult to get them or magistrates to convict.

Mr. Benn: I am coming to my hon. and learned Friend's point. He knows much more about this than I do, but the great case for the application of a standard test is that it enables us to get away from the jury that will not convict. If we could prove medically, by expert evidence, that a man had a higher percentage of alcohol in his blood than was laid down by Statute, I believe that a jury would have no option but to convict, and a magistrate no option but to sentence. Although this proposal does not entirely deal with the soft-headed jury and the inexperienced magistrate, it goes as far as we can now go towards overcoming the difficulty.

Mr. Paget: My hon. Friend says that if medical evidence proves the case the jury will have no option. I would remind him that in the days when it was a hanging offence to steal more than £2, juries found that men stole five sovereigns to the value of £1 19s., and they will go on acting in that way.

Mr. Benn: My hon. and learned Friend is making merry with a very grave matter. I know that he does not mean it. I believe that, although it is not perfect, what I have suggested is the best answer to the problem.
I now turn to another matter which has not even been tackled by the Government. There is no medical test for people who drive automobiles. A person merely has to fill in an application form which asks him three questions: "Do you suffer from epilepsy?" "Can you read?" "Are you suffering from any other disease?" Note F says that if a person is in doubt he can get professional advice, but it does not say that if that professional advice is to the effect that the person concerned is suffering from a disease there is anything to prevent him from completing the form. There is no statutory power to say that a man must produce a certificate to say that he is fit, although nowhere is that more important than in the case of vision.
As the right hon. Gentleman knows, not long ago an article was published in the British Medical Journal about a routine examination of the vision of 1,000 motorists in Sheffield, which established that 7½ per cent. did not fulfil the safety requirements of normal vision. If that investigation was accurately carried out, it indicates that about seven out of every 100 drivers on the road today cannot read a licence plate at the statutory distance. I understand that in Canada—and no doubt the same practice is carried out in other countries—the question of wider medical tests is seriously tackled. Not long ago I was told that in Canada one of the anxieties as one approaches old age is that when one goes for one's medical test one's driving licence may be finally taken away because of medical infirmity. But if that is not done it means that an infirm man is left to drive on the roads. Unfortunately, nothing is done in this country on those lines.
Another point which is of tremendous importance is enforcement. The Minister makes the excuse that he cannot do much because we do not have the requisite number of police to enforce legislation. I have carried out some research into this question, and I want to put before the House the results of my investigations. First, the police are under strength almost all over the country. I believe that in the Metropolitan area they are 15 per cent. under strength and in the City, 28 per cent. under strength. The overall figures give


a misleading impression. What we must consider is not the overall number of police but the number of motorised police. I have made some inquiries on this point. It has been rather difficult, because Scotland Yard is very cagey about revealing its figures, but I was staggered by what I found. The number of patrol cars and motor-cycle police in London today is almost the same as it was ten years ago, although the number of motor vehicles has risen since then by 50 per cent.
Does the House know—and do you know Mr. Speaker, because it is your constituency—that the number of police cars in London for traffic patrol purposes is only 100, and that there are only 145 motor cycle police in the Metropolitan area, although in that area there are 1⅓ million cars on the road? This means that there is only one police car for every 13,000 private vehicles in London. I had thought of saying that the London police force was a one-horse outfit, until I discovered that it has 195 horses on the strength, although it has only 100 motor cars. If horses could help to increase road safety the Metropolitan Police would be the best equipped force in the land in that respect. If the Government do not tackle the problem of police strength seriously, we cannot take them seriously in connection with the matter of safety.
I now turn to the question of the courts. One reason why the courts are inadequate for their purpose is that they are not technically equipped to investigate the accidents brought before them and to obtain proper vehicle reports. The Road Research Laboratory is available to study police findings, but what is needed to tackle this problem is technical facilities put at the disposal of the courts so that they can investigate an accident, put the man concerned on remand for a medical report and also send him for rehabilitation and further training at a police training school. The Chief Constable of Southend has produced a plan for further training which is of tremendous importance.
Next comes the question of roads. Whenever we mention roads the Minister says that his Government have built more roads than the Labour Government did. It is a very good political

point, and it always gets a cheer from hon. Members opposite. But it is a much more serious problem than he seems to think. In any case, it was only right that in the years after the war road building was given a low priority. In the first four years of the Conservative Government there was no more road building than there was in the first six years of the Labour Government. But I have some much more telling figures on this question than merely figures of road construction.
What matters is the ratio between road expenditure and two other factors, namely, national income and the number of vehicles. Taking the percentage of national income spent in Britain per million road vehicles, we find that the present Government are spending half as much on road construction as was spent by the Labour Government in the post-war years. After the war very few vehicles were on the road, and there was a lower total of expenditure generally. At that time 0·2 per cent, of the national income was spent on the roads generally per million vehicles. Now it is only 0·1 per cent.—just half as much as was spent by the Government and local authorities in post-war years. When the Minister says that the Government are doing their job properly in this matter, I would invite him to look at these figures, covering not merely Government expenditure but the expenditure of local authorities.
I do not take seriously the Ministry of Transport's claim to be interested in road safety, and I shall not do so until I see some evidence that all the deficiencies in the law are being tackled. The Minister is new to this job. He has taken over a neglected Department, and it is a very tough job, which causes hostility among his colleagues when it involves taking over some of their responsibilities. It also involves getting far more money from the Treasury than any Chancellor has seemed willing to give. But even with those disabilities we are disappointed with what the Minister hopes to do, or claims he hopes to do.
Nobody likes a new idea. Everybody thinks that the problem arises out of temporary causes, and that it is a temporary crisis. But it is not. Road traffic will increase at a predictable rate from now until we reach saturation point,


whatever that may be—probably one vehicle per adult—in the next twenty-five years. Road accidents are the scourge of this century, just as tuberculosis, squalor and ill-health were in previous generations. What is required to tackle the problem is leadership from the Government. I do not think any Minister has ever had as many offers of help from the Opposition as the right hon. Gentleman has had from us. We are prepared to give him all the help we can in any legislation designed to reduce the number of road accidents. If I may adapt a famous war-time phrase of the right hon. Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill)—
We will give him the tools if only—for goodness' sake—he will get on with the job.

4.35 p.m.

Mr. Geoffrey Wilson: I am very pleased at the way this debate has started. All too often when we discuss questions of road safety and road improvement the argument becomes blurred by an atmosphere of emotionalism or rhetoric, but both my right hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) kept very strictly to a practical approach and confined themselves to making practical suggestions. The hon. Member for Bristol, South-East was a little unfair in some ways. Many of his proposals would involve legislation, and it is clear that they could not be included in any immediate measures in time for Whitsun. We very much hope that there will be a Road Safety Bill in the coming Session. It has been indicated that this may be so, and I support the idea of a much more comprehensive Bill than has so far come before the House. We could not deal with that before Whitsun.
The proposals made to us today could make a practical contribution towards solving this very serious problem—

Mr. George Darling: The hon. Member will recollect that four years ago, in the then Road Traffic Bill, some of us tried to put forward many of the suggestions canvassed by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) today, but the Government turned them down.

Mr. Wilson: Things like the breathalyser could not be introduced without legislation, nor could my right hon.

Friend do anything about deciding how much time should be spent by the B.B.C. in broadcasting road safety programmes. He might be able to make suggestions, but any action would be entirely outside his scope.

Mr. Benn: The Postmaster-General has absolute powers under the Charter to give a direction to the B.B.C.—not that I think that it would be necessary for a moment—to broadcast any material he desires. Nobody knows that better than the Minister, who was such a distinguished Postmaster-General for many years.

Mr. Wilson: The hon. Member was suggesting that the whole of the B.B.C.'s programmes for a day should be taken up with road safety. If my right hon. Friend directed that that should be done, there would be repercussions from the public.
I was glad when my right hon. Friend referred to the fact, which is so often overlooked, that a large proportion of road accidents are due to causes which the Minister has no power to prevent. This point was forcibly brought out some years ago in a pamphlet published by the Travellers' Insurance Company of Hartford, Connecticut, entitled "Who, Me?" It consisted of a number of satirical drawings illustrating the dangerous practices in which motorists might indulge, and it was accompanied by a detailed analysis of many accidents in America in 1951–52. Our motoring organisations, or the Minister, might consider issuing such a document, because it catches the eye and draws attention to a number of points which are well worth looking into.
Some of the figures contained in the pamplet were rather astonishing. In dealing with 32,000 fatal accidents in America in that year it stated that 81 per cent. happened when the weather was clear; 75 per cent. on roads which were dry and in good condition; 96 per cent. with vehicles that were in good condition, and 81 per cent. with cars which were travelling straight. I made inquiry at the time as to what was meant by "travelling straight" and was informed by the insurance company that it was not while making a turn in either direction or coming in contact at right angles at an intersection. It was either piling up


on the car in front or coming in contact with a car while overtaking.
Those percentages do not mean much now because they are out of date, but they emphasise one point which is true in this country. Many accidents are caused by drivers driving at a greater speed than they can control their car. That is by a combination of a lack of skill and, perhaps, over-boldness.
I know that many hon. Members wish to speak in this short debate, so I shall not prolong the proceedings. I conclude by saying that the Minister has made a useful contribution by putting forward these suggestions. I am glad that they include a diversion on the A.38 at Exeter, and on the A.303 at Honiton, because I am sure that crowding on roads during long journeys is a very fruitful source of accidents.
If one is driving from London to Cornwall, by the time one gets to Honiton one becomes impatient if one finds oneself held up by a stream of vehicles. and it often happens that somewhere about that point drivers begin to try to weave in and out and to try to steal an advantage over their neighbours. That is when the trouble starts.
If one can find a diversionary route, especially if it is a considerable distance from London, that will prove of great benefit to drivers who have already driven long distances. I congratulate the Minister on having brought forward these measures.

4.42 p.m.

Mr. George Darling: I agree with the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. G. Wilson) about the value of the information the Minister gave about these diversionary or alternative routes. For years I have done careful map reading before setting out on a long journey to find suitable B roads to keep me off the main roads. I find motoring on B roads more comfortable than on A roads and, surprisingly enough, there is not much difference in the time taken to complete the journey if one takes a succession of B roads rather than the congested A roads where one gets so frustrated and bad-tempered by hold-ups, especially at holiday times. The Minister has given us a mixed bag of proposals, some of which are very good but some of which ought to be

severely questioned. The first question I want to ask concerns the number of new road schemes about which he told us. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) told us, we have not had this hand-out he referred to. We do not know the schemes to which the Minister referred, but unless I am mistaken there are few schemes indeed which are anywhere near completion. I hope that the Minister will stop giving the impression to the House and to the public that a great deal of road building is going on. We know the difficulties about planning, about getting hold of the land, about surveying, about compensation and all the rest of it, and we appreciate the Minister's difficulties. So do the public, and it is wrong to give a misleading impression, as the Minister sometimes does, by saying that a great deal of road building is being done, when it is not.
The Minister mentioned a number of schemes in the south of England and in the Midlands, but I come from Yorkshire and all the representations that have been made to the Minister by the West Riding of Yorkshire County Council, and others, for new urban motorways in Yorkshire—which, heaven knows, are urgently needed—have been to no avail.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: Would the hon. Gentleman not agree that there has been considerable improvement on the A.1—the Retford by-pass, the forthcoming Doncaster by-pass, the Wetherby bypass, and so on?

Mr. Darling: It is true that roads through Yorkshire are being improved, but I am talking about urban motorways into the cities of Yorkshire. It is no use improving the long-distance motorways serving the country if one gets into a bottleneck as soon as one leaves them. Representations by the West Riding County Council and others have got us nowhere.
The important point to me is the 50 m.p.h. speed limit experiment. A short while ago we got the impression from the newspapers—after a Written Answer by the right hon. Gentleman—that long stretches of quite a number of roads in this country would be subject to the 50 m.p.h. speed limit during the Whitsuntide holiday. It now transpires that the 50 m.p.h. speed limit will apply only to short stretches of a few roads.
I do not want to talk about them all. I know most of them as I have travelled on them. I want to talk about one in particular, the A.40, and the three-mile stretch between Gerrard's Cross and Beaconsfield where I live. It is no use putting a speed limit of 50 m.p.h. on that road if the intention is to reduce accidents. Admittedly some accidents are caused by over-speeding, but a large number of accidents on this stretch of the road occur because this is a murderous three-lane highway instead of being a dual carriageway.
It is a curving three-lane highway, and what happens? A motorist gets in the middle lane. He passes a motorist an the inside lane and keeps straight on at whatever speed he is travelling without knowing whether it is safe to remain in the middle lane. When he approaches a bend in the road he has no idea whether traffic is coming from the opposite direction. He does not slacken speed, but goes on, and a crash occurs round the corner. It is because it is a three-lane highway that these accidents occur, and it does not matter whether the motorist travels at 50, 40 or 30 m.p.h. If the right hon. Gentleman looks at the garages along this stretch of road he will find broken and damaged vehicles that have been towed off the highway because of accidents caused by this being a three-lane highway.
One question which I have raised, and I will go on raising it, not only in regard to this 50 m.p.h. speed limit experiment but in respect of all road regulations, is that of enforcement. I repeat what I tried to say at Question Time, that if the police authorities have given the right hon. Gentleman an assurance that they will properly police these short stretches of highway and enforce the 50 m.p.h. speed limit, we have the right to raise the question of enforcement of other regulations and other speed limits.
In the case of the A.40, there are speed limits on both sides of the experimental stretch of 30 m.p.h. I mentioned during Question Time that I use this road almost daily. Very often I drive into High Wycombe, and when I come to the 30 m.p.h. speed limit on the boundary I drop down to 30 m.p.h. because I obey the regulations laid down by the right hon. Gentleman, but all the trucks and vans behind me immediately sweep past at 35, 40 or

50 m.p.h. This is in an area in which apparently the right hon. Gentleman has had an assurance that the new speed limit will be enforced. Why are not the existing speed limits enforced? Why is there no enforcement in this area of any of the other road traffic regulations? Perhaps that is an exaggeration, but I know from my experience in this district that parking signs are ignored, and other parking regulations like not parking outside schools and maximum speed limits are also ignored.
The local police cannot enforce the present regulations because there are not enough of them. I talked to a local inspector of police about this matter. The police are desperately understaffed, and I beg the right hon. Gentleman not to produce any more speed limit regulations until we have the traffic wardens. whose introduction some of us suggested four or five years ago, to assist the police to enforce regulations and to make sure that traffic is properly controlled and is kept flowing.
I do not want to take up too much time, but it is up to us who criticise the right hon. Gentleman and his regulations to make suggestions of our own. I confine myself to the stretch of road which I know very well, but I know that my suggestion applies to other stretches. Accidents are caused on this stretch not by speed alone, but by the fact that there is a three-lane highway. Several states in the United States have three-lane highways on which there is a double line marking places where cars cannot cross over, first on one side of the road and then the other; with a single lane highway on one side and a double lane on the other, and then alternating. Each section lasts for about a mile.
Those of use who travel around the country know from experience how traffic piles up on each side of the road when there are two lanes, one each way, because there is a slow car or truck in front, but as soon as one reaches a double carriageway, the piled-up traffic immediately sorts itself out and spreads out over a long distance. The traffic flow becomes easier and everything goes along much better.
I am confident that these alternate stretches of double track single track, single track double track would help to solve the problem and would get away


from the murderous character of the three-lane highway. The traffic would be strung out and easier to handle, and everything would be made safer. But such a proposal could not be applied simply to a three-mile stretch of road. It would have to go over the whole of the three-lane highway from Western Avenue to High Wycombe. However, it should be operated for the entire stretch, for it is wrong to pick out little stretches and say that they are dangerous and that a speed limit will have to be applied. Traffic piles up over the whole road.
This proposal also raises the problem of enforcement, and here, again, I make another suggestion. I have said that my experience is that there is very little enforcement along this stretch of road because there are very few policemen. Traffic signs and signals and regulations are generally ignored. My proposal for running a double and single track along the present three-lane highway—I do not know whether it has a technical name—can be enforced by having police patrols going up and down with the traffic. At the beginning of the stretch of road, and at appropriate points along the road, there should be three big notices one after the other with some yards in between, the first to say, "There is a police patrol operating on this road", the second to say, "Any driver going over the double line will be arrested" and the third to say, "We mean arrested".
I believe that the police have that power of arrest, but I would be glad to be told whether I am correct. The police have authority to pick up drunks and to put them in the cells for the night so that they come in court the next morning to be charged with drunkenness. If the police have the authority which I think they have to pick up drivers who go over the double line and put them in the cells for the night, they should do so and those drivers should be charged with the offence the next morning.
Let us get hold of these bad drivers who spoil other people's holidays by causing accidents and spoil their holidays by putting them in the cell for the night, their car being parked outside the police station, or in the police yard for them to pick it up the next day. If

they are travelling on business, they are spoiling other people's business by causing accidents, and if they are interfering with the considerate and careful drivers going on their own trading activities, let us spoil their trading activities by this simple device of arresting and putting them in the police station cells for the night to be charged the next morning. A few cases of that kind, well advertised, would have the most pleasing deterrent effect on the bad behaviour of motorists of this type.
I regret to say that I think the right hon. Gentleman's proposals for a 50 m.p.h. speed limit on stretches of this kind will not reduce the number of accidents and will certainly not reduce them on the stretch of road which I know well. Proposals such as those I have suggested should be considered. I do not suggest that any of the right hon. Gentleman's proposals should be opposed. We have to undertake a great deal of experimenting until we find the right way to deal with these problems. I sincerely hope that I am wrong and that the number of accidents at Whitsuntide will be reduced. If there is no reduction, I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will consider some of the far better suggestions which we have been making and will study, far more carefully than he appears to have done, the question of enforcement to make sure that we have a traffic force in this country which can enforce existing regulations before we bring in more which cannot be enforced.

4.57 p.m.

Mr. John Wells: I welcome my right hon. Friend's suggestions, first and foremost, because the A.20 runs straight through and is the backbone of my constituency. In my part of Kent we have been acutely aware at each holiday season for the last few years of the dangers and perils which beset every motorist and every parent who lets his child out on the roads.
The A.20 was a fine road as it began, but there are great requirements today for steps forward beyond the Maidstone by-pass. The Maidstone by-pass is a start, but many of my constituents deplore the slow start which was made on the Medway bridge. We all know the reason for that—the wet weather and


the contractors having technical difficulties and so on, but many of my constituents would like to know why an earlier start on that bridge was not made.
I am glad that my right hon. Friend has stressed the co-operative and helpful attitude of the Chief Constable of Kent, because in Kent we are very proud of our police force and we think that in the difficult times which they have at holiday times our police do a splendid job. The special constables, whom we have at practically every crossroads helping holiday traffic, also do a splendid job. I am sure that they do in other counties, too, but their work in Kent is very noticeable.
To consider the gloomy side of road accidents; I draw my right hon. Friend's attention to the deplorable state of the streets immediately adjoining the West Kent General Hospital. He may think that this is a small and trivial matter, but if we were to have a road accident, a major pile-up, or a rail accident comparable to the Lewisham train disaster, when many ambulances might be needed to rush to the general hospital, which is the only accident hospital in the area, we could have the most appalling difficulties and congestion. I should like to pay tribute to the first-aid teams and the hospital staff.
Another aspect of the A.20 which should be borne in mind, although we are strictly debating the Whitsun holiday arrangements, is that the A.20 is the gateway to England. We are very proud of the attractive layout of part of it, but it is the first impression that the foreign tourist gets of our country and, for that reason, more attention should be paid to the amenity aspect of the A.20.
I have said something already about the disappointment over the Medway bridge. There is another matter which is causing a certain amount of local dissatisfaction, and that is the eastern end of the Maidstone by-pass where it goes back on to the main A.20. It is felt that the curve in is very bad. I have already written to the Joint Parliamentary Secretary on the subject. We welcome the by-pass and we hope that it will save life and congestion.
There are many alternative routes throughout Kent which are widely known to Londoners. I am sorry they

are not included in the Press handout, because they would have had greater publicity. There is the road commonly known as the seven-mile lane from Wrotham Heath, which goes near the village of Mereworth. Again there is another road known as the West Farleigh-Cox Heath road. I introduced that road to my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Costain), who has been able to knock off many minutes in his journey to his constituency by using that back way.

Mr. A. P. Costain: I am very grateful to my hon. Friend. I passed the information on to my constituents and many of them are also using it, but now that the Maidstone by-pass is open it is not such a good trip.

Mr. Wells: There is one point on this alternative road to which I should like to draw attention. The West Farleigh—Cox Heath alternative route passes straight through the middle of Linton Hospital. There must be many alternative roads through the back streets of towns of this country passing through zones of particular danger. Although we want to encourage motorists to use these alternative roads, we must also safeguard the local inhabitants. Linton Hospital provides largely for old people, and they and the staff have to cross this main road. It is normally an unclassified road, but when we get the holiday traffic it becomes as full as a classified road. I would ask my right hon. Friend when advocating these alternative routes to make sure that adequate danger signs are put up to draw the attention of motorists to hospitals. The ordinary hospital sign is too small for the passing holiday motorist.
Again on the subject of the Maidstone by-pass, I understand that my right hon. Friend has for the time being shelved any proposal of aid for the proposed new street in Maidstone. It is an unfortunate decision. It is no good his saying, "We will wait and see what the by-pass brings". The new street at Maidstone is for the north—south flow of traffic and not the east-west flow of traffic. I invite my right hon. Friend to come to Maidstone on any market day when it is not dealing with the holiday traffic but when the ordinary congestion of traffic is very great indeed. We are very anxious to have his support for


our very go-ahead and capable local authority.
In mentioning the local authorities in Kent, I think tribute should be paid to them for providing the new lay-bys on unclassified roads which are not only convenient for courting couples but are passing places on roads which did not have passing places provided. The Kent County Council are doing extremely well in that direction and in the maintenance and improvement of the Maidstone-Tonbridge road.
Can we not have more "no-waiting" areas on greater stretches of the Old Kent Road, the main gateway to southeast England. When I come along the Old Kent Road in the morning I often find vans parked on either side of the road with the result that there is a single flow of traffic each way which is a deplorable state of affairs. Surely during the business rush and at holiday times we might have a clear way in the Old Kent Road.
The abolition of traffic lights at Wrotham Hill and the substitution of a roundabout has proved a great safety factor, and local motorists have welcomed it, because now when one is driving down hill fairly fast one does not suddenly find oneself confronted with changing traffic lights. There is a similar traffic light at the point where people are first released from the conventional speed limit and enter the County of Kent. A driver comes over a hill, whose name, unfortunately, I do not know, and comes on this first traffic light on the open road in the County of Kent on the A.20. This light is unfortunately situated, and if the road surface is wet or one strikes an oil patch it could be dangerous. I should like my right hon. Friend to look at that matter.
Many hon. Members were disturbed to see in last Saturday's Financial Times a motoring article informing us that it is possible to buy a hotted-up engine for a mini-car at the cost of a few £s. That engine enables one to drive a minicar at a speed of 87 m.p.h. That is ridiculously fast. These small cars are the kind of vehicle which young people might buy as their first car. The hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) has said something about a young driver starting off on a motor cycle and

having no instruction. I am sure that we all agree with the hon. Member. But these young people may well buy a minicar with this hotted-up engine at a price which is little more than the cost of a motor-cycle and take as passengers a young wife or perhaps children or granny or grandfather, and heaven knows who else besides, and the presence of these vehicles on the road might cause considerable danger to other people. I should like to know from my right hon. Friend whether there is any method of controlling the manufacture of these hotted-up engines and their sale at a low price and their use in small vehicles primarily not intended to travel at great speed.

Mr. Harold Davies: Why does the hon. Gentleman refer only to cars at a low price? Is he suggesting that the only people who can travel at speed are those who are rich and can afford to buy expensive cars?

Mr. Wells: Not at all. When I used the expression "low priced" it was because I thought that this type of car may be bought by many young people who for the expenditure of another £5 or £10 would like a car with a bit of zip in it which they would then feel they could drive with the fastest in the land. But, with the hon. Member for Leek (Mr. Harold Davies), I deplore the fact that any small car, whatever the cost, should be driven at excessive speeds.
Another unfortunate factor is the mentality of some young men and women whom we see on the A.20 who may be described as having the "Brand's Hatch mentality." In the neighbourhood of the A.20 there is the excellent circuit at Brand's Hatch. Frequently when I go home from this House at night I do not say to myself as I leave New Palace Yard, "I wonder if I shall see an accident tonight"; but, "I wonder where tonight's accident will be." It is as serious as that. There are a number of very good cafes in the vicinity of Brand's Hatch and as I travel home driving a modest car at what I hope is a modest speed I come across shoals of motor cyclists who are overtaking each other as they race along the road. I do not say that these young people have drink in them. The hon. Member for Farnham (Sir G. Nicholson) made some reference to drink, but I think that these


young people are out to impress their girl friends. This "Brand's Hatch mentality" ought to be curbed. I fully realise the difficulties. Hon. Members have spoken about the difficulty of enforcing the regulations and the necessity to recruit more policemen. I should like to see a better scale of pay for our policemen which I am sure would assist recruiting. I appreciate that that is a matter which is beyond the province of my right hon. Friend, but if we are to insist on a more strict enforcement of the regulations we must have more police, and if we are to get more police they must be paid more.

5.10 p.m.

Mr. Frank McLeavy: Much of the argument advanced by the hon. Member for Maidstone (Mr. J. Wells) was a condemnation of the policy of the Government in not allocating adequate moneys towards road construction. A justifiable complaint from the motoring industry generally is that a very small proportion of the approximate amount of £400 million raised in taxation is used for the construction of bypasses and roads and for the improvement of existing roads. Many of the problems which today confront the motoring industry and the travelling public arise from the fact that Governments and Parliaments have not tackled with sufficient vigour this question of motorway construction and the improvement of existing roads. I think that the motoring industry is entitled to complain of the tremendous burden of taxation, on the one hand, and the inadequacy of the road construction programme on the other.
We must not lose sight of the fact that the problem of road safety is allied to the problem of how far the Government may be persuaded to improve and extend road facilities. I join with my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) in congratulating the Minister on the Regulations which he has placed before the House, although I agree that in themselves they are totally inadequate to meet the needs of transport. However, I welcome them as an indication that the Minister is at least trying, as no other Conservative Minister of Transport has done during the last eight or ten years, to grapple with this great problem.
During the Whitsuntide holiday the two objectives of the Minister should be to improve road safety and the flow of traffic. They are desirable objectives. I was not very impressed by the emphasis placed by the Minister on the human factor in relation to accidents. I do not think that the term "human error" can be attributed to a person who drives a vehicle at an excessive speed or who drives when he is under the influence of drink. The Minister is wrong in trying to plaster over this serious problem of death and injury on the road by saying that it is impossible to deal with human error. If we are not prepared to bring in the necessary Regulations and to pass the necessary legislation to deal with these offending motorists we shall never solve this difficult problem.
In fairness I must say that the vast majority of motorists try to behave on the roads, and, as far as possible, they pay heed to the pleadings of the Minister. They drive carefully with due regard to the interests of others. They do not present the Minister with a problem. The problem is posed by those few motorists who are not prepared to drive carefully or to pay due regard to the need to keep within a reasonable speed limit. They are not prepared to give up calling at the "pub" during the evening and getting soaked up with liquor and then driving on the roads and becoming a menace. I criticise the Minister for not having the courage to produce a remedy to deal with this type of person.
I agree that the enforcement of Regulations is an important factor in ensuring that they are respected by the motoring community. I am sorry that the Home Secretary just popped into the Chamber to have a look round and then went out again. I should have thought that either the right hon. Gentleman or someone else from the Home Office ought to be present during this debate to listen to the suggestions which have been and which will be made about the inadequacy of our police forces. As was said by the hon. Member for Maidstone, there is no doubt that unless we are prepared to pay the price, which means unless we are prepared to provide a proper salary and attractive conditions of service, we shall not recruit the increased number of policemen required. It is not just a question of the failure of the Ministry of Transport; it is also a question of the


failure of the Home Office to ensure that opportunities are provided for the police forces of the country to recruit a growing number of people to their ranks.
I believe that the Minister of Transport should bring pressure to bear upon his right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and persuade him to tackle the question of increasing the number of our policemen in order that there may be a stricter enforcement of these Regulations. I was surprised at the limited area to which the Regulations are intended to apply. I should have thought that the Minister of Transport would have imposed a 50 m.p.h. speed limit throughout the country, except on the motorways.
The Minister tried to explain this afternoon why he had not applied the speed limit beyond 150 miles of roadway. He said that the trouble was the difficulty of enforcement. I should have thought that it would be infinitely better to apply the speed limit throughout the whole country and to ask the police forces to implement that measure of enforcement which is humanly possible in the circumstances.
I believe that had the speed limit been applied throughout the country the Minister would have been better able to judge whether, in point of fact, a speed limit was the remedy for averting some of the accidents and deaths on the road. It seems to me that because of the limited nature of the experiment it will not provide the Minister with the right type of information on which to form a judgment in the matter.
As hon. Members know, I have for years pleaded in the House for the imposition of a universal speed limit. I know that some hon. Members on both sides of the House have been urging the Minister to decontrol road after road. I am not blaming the present Minister of Transport. In many cases his predecessors in office gave way to the pressure brought to bear on them, and therefore they must take their share of responsibility for the ever-increasing rate of accidents and deaths on the road.
I do not think that the average motorist objects to a reasonable speed limit. Indeed, I think that, generally, he drives at a speed consonant with public safety. For the life of me, I cannot visualise any objection at all by the motoring com-

munity to a universal speed limit—leaving aside, of course, motorways which are specially built for speed—which would still allow them to travel at a reasonable speed and which would mean that those who exceeded the speed limit would be liable to prosecution.
On the question of prosecution, there has from time to time been criticism in the House of magistrates' decisions and of quarter sessions. I can speak as one Who has done quite a lot of magisterial work, and I say quite frankly that if we are looking for the reason why adequate penalties are not being imposed we should not look to the magisterial bench for it. The bench does all it can to protect the interests of the community. The person who is guilty of a serious motoring offence usually elects to be tried before a jury and one often finds that he appears before a jury composed of fellow motorists.
I know that a lot of lawyers are always criticising the lay magistrates, but I would point out that they are doing a tremendous job. They interpret the law in a commonsense way. The difficulty in this question of motoring offences is not the failure of the magistrates properly to carry out their duties but the failure of the system which allows a person to elect to go for trial at quarter sessions. As I say, he usually appears before a jury of honest to goodness motorists and, somehow or other, the miscarriage of justice occurs.
Can the Minister say whether it is now possible not only to publish monthly statistics about the number of accidents and deaths on the road but also whether the Ministry will make available the most detailed information that is humanly possible, giving the nature of the accidents, the type of vehicles involved and any other statistics which would be of value in order to ascertain for certain what is the division of responsibility as between motor cycles, small cars, large cars, and so on? Such information would be of tremendous value to those Members of the House of Commons who are particularly interested in these matters.
In conclusion, I wish to repeat what I said at the beginning of my speech. I welcome what the Minister is doing. We wish him well and we hope that this experiment will result in a reduction of


the number of accidents and deaths during the holiday period. We also hope that if it does the Minister will not hesitate to come to the House and say, "Because of the success of this experiment we propose to extend it over a wider field throughout the country." I do not believe that there is any hon. Member who is not sorely worried about the great tragedy of injury and death on the roads. I am sure that all hon. Members and the general public are waiting for a courageous lead by the Minister of Transport in this attempt to cut down the terrible toll.
If the Minister, without regard to vested interest on one side or the other, whether it be the brewers or the motoring industry, comes forward with proposals to enable us to grapple with the problem, I am sure that the mass of people in the country will be behind him. I am also perfectly sure that the House of Commons will give him every support. Therefore, we wish him good luck in his experiment and we hope that his expectations will be fulfilled. If they are, we want him to make sure that the improvement brought about by the experiment is maintained in the future.

5.30 p.m.

Mr. R. Gresham Cooke: I am sorry that the hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) is not in his pi ace at the moment, although no doubt the hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) will tell him what I have had to say. The hon. Member for Bristol, South-East was a little less than fair to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport. It is quite easy to write letters to the Minister making a dozen suggestions, and it is easy to make them in the House, but it is much more difficult to carry them out. I was impressed by the fact that my right hon. Friend made seven positive suggestions in his speech which he will carry out over Whitsun.
It is all very well to say that Britain trails behind the rest of the world in safety measures, as the hon. Member for Bristol, South-East suggested, but it must not be forgotten that, despite all that, we have a better safety record than has France or Germany in the matter of deaths and injuries on the road. In spite of our faults we are not at the bottom of the league by any means. We are certainly a good way up it.
I want to refer to four of the steps which the Minister mentioned today, and incidentally four of the things which I hope will give my right hon. Friend his reward at Whitsun by reducing the number of deaths to below the seventy-three during the similar period last year. First, there are the alternative routes which he is providing for traffic to the coast. I was shocked to hear that the chairman of one local authority had refused to adopt an alternative route.
As it happens, there is an alternative route to the coast past my house in Berkshire. There were two or three accidents there last summer practically outside my garden gate. Pressure has been put on me to try to use my influence to have the alternative route cancelled because of these accidents, but I refuse to yield to that pressure because I find that the congestion on the old road is less and the safety record is slightly better taking the two roads together in spite of the fact that there have been accidents at one or two places where there was none before. I hope, therefore, that what has been said in the House will induce this chairman of a local authority to open the alternative route to the coast.
I was interested to hear that the police are to introduce a traffic device to provide for a quicker flow of traffic past traffic signals on some of our main roads. I am sorry that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is not in his place, because it has been said many times in London that whenever the police interfere with traffic lights, as they often do during the rush hours, they slow down the traffic. There is a certain amount of truth in that. I do not believe that the police control the traffic at these cross-roads by hand as well as the traffic signals do. If the police use this automatic device to speed up traffic on one road they can take advantage of the traffic signalling system without interfering with its operation to the detriment of certain people.

Mr. Darling: The trouble is not so much the time interval as the fact that so much of the traffic wants to turn to the right.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: There is something in that, but I have felt that the police have interfered with the timing of the signals when they have taken


over at places like the Cromwell Road extension.
I was also pleased to hear that the Minister has persuaded local authorities to get rid of minor obstructions on trunk roads at Whitsun. I asked a Question about this two or three weeks ago and I am glad that action is being taken. The other suggestion which I should like to make relates to double white lines. I feel that in many cases they are too short. I motored the other day on the A4 through Hungerford which has about three hundred yards of the main trunk road. In that distance there are two sets of double white lines with an intervening gap, the implication being that it is safe to overtake where there is no double white line. It is, of course, not safe. The road is narrow and there is a great deal of traffic on it. Those lines could be lengthened with advantage. The hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central (Mr. Short) intervened a little earlier to congratulate the Minister on passing his advanced motoring test.

Mr. C. Pannell: Do not tell the House that you have done it.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: It so happens that I am a founder member.

Mr. Pannell: I knew that that was at the back of the remark.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: It would not have been brought out but for that intervention.

Mr. Pannell: Oh yes, it would.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: This fraternity, of which the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Darling) is also one of the founder members, has learned a great deal in the last two or three years. About 36,000 people have taken the advanced test, which is not very difficult, and half have failed. If that is the cream of the motoring fraternity in this country, I shudder to think what the standard is like among the rest.
One of the things we have learned is that a factor in accidents is undoubtedly lack of skill. There is a lack of skill and training on the part of many people which causes them to place themselves in the wrong position in the road and thereby have accidents. Another

fact is that the aggressive, selfish driver is the cause of many accidents. Our motoring examiners, all of whom are ex-policemen and first-class drivers, are able in the 1½ hours during which they examine candidates to determine lack of skill or to discover that the candidate suffers from such an aggressive character that he is not worthy of passing the advanced test.
I suggest that hon. Members should submit themselves to the test, because even if one fails one can have a chat with the examiner to find out one's faults. It would be a splendid example if hon. Members submitted themselves to the test, whether they think they are advanced motorists or not. The test is taken in private and there need be no publicity if they fail.
We know for certain that the worst two hours, during which the greatest number of deaths will occur at Whitsun, will be between 10 o'clock and midnight on Saturday. That is the time when the young men are showing off to their girl friends how fast they can go, and their girl friends are egging them on, either in a motor car or on a motor cycle, to go faster. There will be a large number of accidents. I drive about on Saturday nights and see many people, both young and old, driving at 60 m.p.h. in built-up areas where they should be travelling at 30 m.p.h.
I have four children all of whom drive a motor car. My wife always says to them before they go out, "Drive carefully". This matter of Saturday night driving is one for the parents. If every parent on this coming Saturday night were to say to the children before they go out either in a motor car or on a motor cycle "Drive carefully", we should have a much better record in these dangerous and horrible two hours.

5.39 p.m.

Mr. Charles Pannell: I understand that the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport wants some time in which to reply to the debate. Therefore, I will not follow the hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Gresham Cooke) too far in his remarks, though I would say that my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Darling) has suggested that before any hon. Member puts a House of Commons badge on his car windscreen he


ought to pass the test of the Institute of Advanced Motorists, which seems to me an idea.
The Minister had something to say today about holes in the road and the fact that local authorities ought to show more consideration. I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman has looked at Westminster Bridge where it was decided yesterday morning to do a small job which could have been done by a nightshift in a couple of hours and which held up all the traffic right on the corner and created a complete bottleneck. I should have thought that that was a mistake in timing, and it adds point to a theory that I have had for some time that this Parliament ought to be able to control its precincts and the access thereto.
There is another matter about which the Minister will know. Whatever the legal difficulties, it seems unfortunate that his Department should have asked the Finchley Borough Council to take down its notices about dogs. The hon. Gentleman knows the difficulties which have arisen in Finchley under the Road Traffic Act, 1956, because a stretch of road runs through the area of two local authorities. I moved an Amendment, following the drafting of his own Ministry, and it is his Department's own drafting, which has gone wrong. I think that the Association of Municipal Corporations has called attention to this matter, and I should have thought, in any event, since he is attempting to put the matter right in another place, that the notices might just as well have remained. It is unfortunate that this ridiculous situation should have been created, with the notices which the local authority put there being ordered down, presumably pending some judgment from their Lordships' House.
I am all in favour of putting the greatest possible, Parliamentary, nonpolitical pressure on the Minister, not because the Minister so much needs pressure but because he needs support. Continual pressure by this House indicating that we are behind him and we want him to move even faster can be of great advantage to him.
One or two opinions ought to go out from this House not only about what juries and courts do but, sometimes, about judicial opinions which are delivered. I see the hon. Member for

Wimbledon (Sir C. Black) in his place; he will corroborate what I am about to say. The Leeds Stipendiary Magistrate recently, when imposing what some people thought was a rather low penalty on a drunken driver, delivered himself of an opinion to the effect that he was not so much concerned with drivers who were drunk as with drivers who were sober and ought to know what they were doing. That seems to me to be standing reason on its head. One wonders how silly a stipendiary can get. As I know him personally, I have no doubt that he will take this up with me when I meet him. However, considering that stipendiaries do sometimes deliver themselves of such opinions, I think that Parliamentarians might well deliver themselves of opinions sometimes on the statements of stipendiaries.
When it began, the debate was contrated principally on the 50 m.p.h. limit. Whatever may be said about the reservations which hon. Members have, I welcome anything the Minister does to call attention to the fact that he intends to take an aggressive line. The hon. Member for Guildford (Sir R. Nugent) is not in the Chamber at the moment. His theory—he is a nice man himself—seems to be that, if everyone behaved well at all times, road accidents would be reduced. Quite frankly, I do not regard that as good enough. It reminds me of the little girl who prayed to God to make all bad people good and all good people nice. Such an approach is really not sufficient in this world.
In my view, following the 50 m.p.h. restriction during the holiday period, we should from time to time make other experiments. I am in no position to judge whether the suggestion made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hillsborough about traffic flow in Beaconsfield is a good one or not, but all these things should be looked at. There is no short and simple answer to the problem of road accidents. It is an amalgamation of many factors each one of which we must get down to. Although it may appear that some proposals impinge upon the liberty of the individual, the carnage on our roads today is so awful that any Minister doing anything in an aggressive way should receive the blessing and good will of the House.

5.44 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. John Hay): The purpose of this debate on the Adjournment was to give my right hon. Friend the opportunity to outline to the House the plans we have for dealing with the traffic situation at Whitsun and to take the sense of the House upon these measures. It is not surprising, therefore, bearing in mind that we are discussing the matter on the Adjournment, that the debate has been an extremely far-ranging one.
Several suggestions have been made, particularly in regard to road safety, which would require legislation. Although the rules covering the scope of debate on the Adjournment have been somewhat relaxed, I think that it would probably be outside the general scope of our discussion if I were to comment in detail upon all of them. I should, moreover, far exceed the amount of time we have allotted for this debate if I were to attempt to do so. I can, however, give hon. Members the assurance that we hope to be able to introduce legislation on road safety matters and we shall certainly take very careful account of everything which has been said this afternoon and of the suggestions which have been made about improvements in our road safety legislation.

Mr. Benn: Will that be in the forth-coming Session?

Mr. Hay: I thought that the hon. Gentleman might ask that question. I regret that I cannot tell him when. I think he will understand that it is still a little too early to say, but I have high hopes that we shall be able to legislate on this matter in the next Session. I beg the hon. Gentleman and the House not to tie me to that because these things sometimes go astray. I certainly hope that we shall be able to do something next Session.
I wish to direct my remarks to the proposals which we have put forward for dealing with the Whitsun traffic situation and to the questions which have been put during the debate. The first speech made from the benches opposite came from the hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) who raised several points. He complained a little that the

Press notice, which, I admit, is voluminous and requires some study, was not issued to hon. Members at least twenty-four hours ago. He will, on reflection, I am sure, realise that we were, if I may say so, on the horns of several dilemmas in dealing with this matter. First, we had to remember that to make any impact upon the public, whose cooperation in all these traffic measures we need, it was essential that our announcements should be made not too long before Whitsun, on the one hand, and not too close to Whitsun on the other. The timing was rather difficult, and it had to be adjusted just right.
The second difficulty was that since we were to have a debate it would have been improper for us to release the details to the Press a considerable time before the debate took place. The House has frequently been somewhat jealous of its rights and has complained of Ministers who chose to give information to the Press which, rightly, was appropriate to a debate about to take place. We have done the best we can. We gave instructions that the Press notice, a copy of which the hon. Gentleman had in advance from me as a matter of courtesy, was not to be issued until the debate began. I have seen the early editions of the evening papers, and I hope that the Press will co-operate with us in giving the maximum publicity to what I feel sure will be useful, though perhaps not dramatic, measures in dealing with the flow of traffic at Whitsun.
The hon. Member for Bristol, South-East, his hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Darling) and other hon. Members asked why we had not included in our plan provision for the tidal flow of traffic. I have myself looked very closely into this matter and spent a good deal of time on it. Tidal flow experiments in this country are not very easy because our roads are of such configuration and shape, with sometimes wide stretches and sometimes narrow stretches, that it is not by any means easy to do the kind of thing which can be done in America.
If our roads were of uniform width and if their design characteristics were better over the major part of their length, it would be far easier to carry out tidal flow experiments at both busy periods and holiday periods than it is. It is


not much good trying to organise a tidal flow experiment, let us say, on the London-Brighton road, much of which is dual carriageway now anyhow, if one finds that there is a three-lane road suddenly narrowing to a two-lane road and then, perhaps, widening again, because the whole purpose of the tidal flow experiment is to achieve what the name implies, a flow with the tide. We examined the idea very carefully, but it could not be done. We shall nevertheless persevere and, as our road system improves, of course, the scope for tidal flow experiments of that kind will be much greater than it has been in the past.
The next suggestion that the hon. Gentleman made referred to the possible use of radio to advise motorists while in their cars or when about to start on a journey of the state of traffic congestion or what it is likely to be on the roads that they will be using. This is an idea that I had as a result of listening to French radio programmes. "Paris Inter", which is the French equivalent of the Light Programme, has for some years been operating a programme for motorists which gives half-hourly bulletins on the state of congestion or otherwise of traffic on the outskirts of Paris. Motoring to my constituency on Saturdays, I frequently listen to this programme.
I therefore went into the possibility of organising something along those lines in this country. I discussed it with officials of my right hon. Friend's Department, then with officials of the motoring organisations and finally with the B.B.C., and we had a number of joint meetings to see whether anything could be done. Although there was enormous good will on all sides, because it was considered that it was an experiment that would be well worth trying if it were practicable. the fact was that there were so many difficulties, which I will briefly outline in a moment, that it was not a practical proposition.
To begin with, if information is to be of any value to the motorist while in his car listening to the radio, it must be up to the minute or as near up to the minute as we can make it. It is not the slightest good giving motorists information about the state of traffic half an hour or an hour before. The problem

resolves itself straight away into a technical one—how could the information be collected as quickly as possible, and, when that had been done, how could it be got to the announcer and out on the air as quickly as possible?
Although, as I say, there was every good will and people made great efforts to see what could be done to shorten the time, it became obvious at an early stage that the time taken for the motoring organisation patrols to get to the reporting point with their messages to be passed on, the time required for those messages to be collated and put into a form in which they could be broadcast at the headquarters of the motoring organisations, for that information to be fed to the B.B.C. and for it to be subedited into a form suitable for announcement, and then to get the announcement to the microphone, was such that it was not a practicable proposition.

Mr. Benn: What is the objection to having spotter helicopters transmitting, and directly linked with the Light Programme? The motorists would have understood if the arrangement had not worked perfectly, but an idea of that kind would cut out all the delay.

Mr. Hay: The Automobile Association and the police have aircraft which they use at holiday times. I saw them at Easter time. They were perfectly willing to help us in this way, but I am afraid that again it would not have worked. In the nature of things, an aircraft can cover at a certain moment only a particular area. What we were trying to do was to deal with the entire Metropolitan and south-east England area. Two aircraft would not have been sufficient to deal with that. Moreover, the people who know about these things at the A.A. tell me that it is often difficult for people in the air to be so clear about the state of congestion on the ground as their own patrols can be when they are actually on the ground.
I do not want to spend a lot of time on this subject because there are many other matters on which I ought to speak, but I can assure the House that we went very carefully into this question. It was, I hoped, an imaginative scheme which would have interested the motorist and would have been of some help as an experiment. We have not despaired and will go on and see if there is anything


we can do. I doubt, however, whether we shall be able to find a solution in the suggestion of the hon. Gentleman that the Light Programme should completely stop providing programmes of entertainment during holiday periods and be devoted entirely to traffic bulletins. I do not think that would be popular in the House or in the country.
The next suggestion by the hon. Gentleman was that greater use should be made of railways. He pointed to the fact that my right hon. Friend has responsibility not only for road traffic but also for railways. I ought to remind him that this summer for the first time British Railways are running many more services whereby motorists can take their cars with them by rail. Certainly I know that the members of the Commission are well aware of the desirability of doing something along these lines and trying to make people use railways rather than crawl along the roads in their cars. I am sure that they will go on doing whatever they can in that respect.
As the hon. Member for Bradford, East (Mr. McLeavy) said, the problem that we are facing at Whitsun and throughout the summer is one of a mounting volume of traffic trying to get along a road system which is out of date and which badly needs vast modernisation. The hon. Member for Bristol, South-East was a little off-key in some of the comparisons that he drew. He produced some statistics and calculations as to the extent of expenditure under the Government of which he was not a member, but provided by the party to which he belongs, between 1945 and 1951.

Mr. Darling: After the war.

Mr. Hay: After the war, as the hon. Gentleman says. It is worth recalling that our road programme is running at the rate of £105 million in this current year. It is £11·4 million over last year. To get the matter into perspective, whether the proportions are different from what they were under a Labour Government or not, it is worth remembering that this year we shall be spending twenty-five times as much money on our road programme as the yearly average throughout the years between 1945 and 1951.

Mr. Darling: After the war.

Mr. Hay: After the war, as the hon. Gentleman says. We ought not to be criticised too much by the party opposite which could have done more than it did—though I realise its difficulties—and which is far too apt to criticise us for lack of progress when progress is, in fact, being made. A great many holiday motorists when they go away this year will notice the differences. They will see the improvements that have been made in the last twelve months and will welcome them.
May I come to the suggestions made by the hon. Member for Hillsborough? He criticised the fact that the 50 m.p.h. speed limit experiment was to be extended for only 150 miles. In his view this is insufficient. I hope that, on reflection, and when he reads what my right hon. Friend said, the hon. Gentleman will realise that this is a somewhat limited experiment. It is not intended to be a permanent arrangement; nor is it intended to be country-wide. Our main desire is to conduct an experiment, as my right hon. Friend said, on certain selected lengths of trunk roads which could have a high accident record at holiday times. This we are going to try to monitor as best we can, and we hope that as a result we shall be able to draw some useful lessons from the experiment.
We have to limit it to trunk roads for a number of reasons. First, the widely different standards of roads in this country would make it virtually impossible to select an arbitrary limit which would not be much too fast for safety on some roads and unreasonably restrictive on others. Second, this is an experiment, and, to achieve the degree of control and observation necessary to see how the experiment goes, it has to have a limited field. Third, the Minister is able to arrange a much more coherent experiment on trunk roads, for which he is the traffic authority, than could be done on other roads, because those other roads involve a large number of authorities with perhaps conflicting ideas. Finally, the trunk roads are the most important roads in the country, and that is why we have selected these.
Several hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Hillsborough, asked what was happening about enforcement.


They asked what was the use of applying a 50 m.p.h. limit if it was not to be enforced. As my right hon. Friend said, discussions have taken place with the police forces and the Home Office—and I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary for his help in this matter—with the object of seeing what enforcement can be applied. I think that we must, however, appeal to the public to observe the 50 m.p.h. limit. We are going to put up the signs and we shall give as much publicity as we can to the fact that the 50 m.p.h. experiment is being carried out. There will be enforcement at certain times of the day and perhaps the evening, and the enforcement will be quite intensive.
Ultimately, however, we come back to the issue that has been dominating this debate—it is the human factor that is important. We shall, therefore, be obliged to rely on the public, in their own interests and in the interests of traffic flow, as well as of safety, to observe this limit. Then we shall see how we get on.

Mr. A. E. Hunter: Could the Ministry advertise this 50 m.p.h. limit in the national Press and on the radio and television?

Mr. Hay: I am sorry that the hon. Member has not been able to be present throughout our discussion. Had he been present earlier he would have heard that we have issued a very full Press notice this afternoon, copies of which are available in the Library, and that the early editions of the evening newspapers have already published the information.

Mr. Harold Davies: The Minister spoke of using the public. Has he and his right hon. Friend used that section of the public that has the greatest know-how of any in London? Have they had a conference with the taxi drivers? I am sure that the taxi drivers could provide a wealth of information about byways in London and elsewhere.

Mr. Hay: We know quite a lot of the taxi drivers. Both my right hon. Friend and I had quite hectic negotiations with them a few weeks ago over the U-turns. However, I think that I can meet the hon. Gentleman's point by saying that Mr. Alex Samuels. Chairman of the London and Home Counties Traffic Advisory

Committee, who has been a practical taxi man for years and who is in touch with all his friends in the trade, is always there to help us. He is helping us now, and I am sure that we shall get continuing good advice from him and from his colleagues.
Next, I should like to refer to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone (Mr. J. Wells). He asked whether he would consider the problem of crowded streets around the West Kent General Hospital, and I can assure him that we will certainly look into that matter. My hon. Friend made other suggestions, particularly about roads in Kent and the approaches to London, and we will look into those, too.
He raised one issue that had not until then been fully discussed. He referred to the problem that we are up against in providing alternative routes. As my right hon. Friend said earlier, we have in this scheme tried to produce a large number of alternative routes to the popular holiday resorts. Our difficulty, of course, is that if we do find an alternative route then, in no time at all, that route, if the public patronises it, becomes just as congested as the main road to which it is intended to be an alternative. We therefore have to be rather careful in our selection of these routes, but if my hon. Friend has up his sleeve details of any route that we have never heard of, and if he has no copyright in it—and, apparently, he has not, because he has told others of my hon. Friends—I should be grateful if he would let us know.
My hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Mr. Gresham Cooke) spoke about the double white line. We realise perfectly that, provided it is uniform, the double white line is a valuable safety measure and also contributes something to traffic flow. It is a comparatively new idea in this country, and we believe that highway authorities must be given a little time to settle down and to realise how the thing should properly be done. We have given them a good deal of advice. We have issued circulars. Our divisional road engineers are in constant touch with highway authorities, and we try to inform them as to the way in which they should use the double white line, at which places


it is suitable, at which places it is unsuitable. We advise them about the necessity of avoiding, if possible, breaks in the double white line such as those to which my hon. Friend referred. Here, again, we have to wait for experience to accumulate, and for local highway authorities to make the best use they can, in the light of their local circumstances, of this very valuable Measure.
I hope that the House appreciates that this plan is not intended to be, nor is it put forward as being, a panacea for all our Whitsun holiday problems. We have had plenty of experience of the growing volume of traffic on our road system, and I had some personal experience of it at Easter. I am quite certain that something of this nature is needed. Frankly, it is intended to be an experimental plan. It is not intended to—and I do not suppose that it will completely—solve the problems of every single individual wanting to travel to the country or to the seaside, but I am quite certain that it will help to speed up the flow of traffic and make travel easier during the Whitsun holiday period and during the summer months. I am equally certain that if people play the game, observe the rules, and try to take advantage of what we are doing for their benefit, we shall, after the Whitsun Holiday period is over, be able to point to a reduction in this appalling total of casualities which, as hon. Gentlemen have quite rightly said, is becoming so ghastly a feature of our popular holidays in this twentieth century.

Mr. R. Brooman-White (Lord Commissioner of the Treasury): I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Orders of the Day — ROAD TRAFFIC AND ROADS IMPROVEMENT BILL

Order for consideration, as amended, (in the Standing Committee) read.

6.8 p.m.

The Minister of Transport (Mr. Ernest Marples): I beg to move,
That the Bill be recommitted to a Committee of the whole House in respect of the Amendment to Clause 12, page 19, line 17, standing on the Notice Paper in the name of Mr. Marples.
The reason for this Motion is that the Amendment which has been tabled at the suggestion of the Association of Municipal Corporations—to which I am very grateful—gives new or additional charging powers to local authorities, who have a very good point here. That Amendment cannot be considered on Report. According to our Standing Orders, it can be considered only in Committee. I therefore hope that the House will accept the Motion.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill immediately considered in Committee.

[Major Sir WILLIAM ANSTRUTHER-GRAY in the Chair]

Clause 12.—(ADDITIONAL POWERS OF LOCAL AUTHORITIES IN CONNECTION WITH PROVISION OF OFF-STREET PARKING PLACES.)

Mr. Marples: I beg to move, in page 19, line 17, at the end to insert:
(4) An authority having power under the said Section eighty-one to provide off-street parking places may adapt for use as a temporary off-street parking place any land owned by them or under their control, not being, in the case of land so owned, land acquired or appropriated by them for such a parking place.
This Amendment has been framed at the request of the Association of Municipal Corporations, and I should like to say at once how grateful I am to the association for its assistance. It shows what good co-operation and consultation we have had with the local authorities, even though there has not been a great deal of time for it. The local authorities have asked for this power, and I think that it is quite a reasonable request.
The position is this. Suppose a local authority had a slum site on which it proposed to rebuild; that it had cleared the site, but felt that the moment was not quite opportune to go ahead with the rebuilding. This Amendment provides that the authority can use that slum site as a car park, and carry out some remedial measures—perhaps bulldozing it level, or perhaps putting down bricks for hard standing. The local authority can convert the site for use as a car park, and not have to keep the space idle during the waiting period before rebuilding. Money can be spent on it and, at the same time, charges can be made.
The association pointed out that during, for example, another Pink Zone next Christmas, perhaps, there might be similar sites that could well be used for car parking. It seems wrong that a local authority having a site which was not being used for building flats, or whatever the purpose might be, should have to leave the land idle. I therefore hope that the Committee will agree that this is a very reasonable Amendment, and accept it.

Mr. Wedgwood Benn: Naturally, I wish to support any Amendment that has been agreed between the Minister and the local authorities to make easier the life of the authorities. I have tried to understand the Amendment as drafted, but perhaps it is too much for a Member to expect to be able to do that. To me, however, the Amendment reads as though it is to apply only to land acquired by a local authority for a purpose other than establishing a parking place.
What happens if the authority has acquired the land to build an off-street car park but has not the money to proceed with that project at once? Does this curious wording preclude the authority from using that land for temporary car parking? It sounds an absurd point to raise, but the Amendment specifically says
…not being, in the case of land so owned, land acquired or appropriated by them for such a parking place.
All I seek is to be sure that even though the local authority has acquired the land for a car park it is not prevented from putting that land to such temporary use.

Mr. Marples: I can give the hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) that assurance. I quite agree with him about the wording. The purposes of the Bill are quite simple, but I find the wording somewhat difficult. I confess to being in some difficulty. We do not all have the sagacity or training of my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, who made his fortune at the law and now gives us the benefit of his advice for nothing.

Dr. Barnett Stross: I was able to follow the right hon. Gentleman because of the example in my own constituency, where there is a good deal of slum clearance, and where such use is already made of the land. I presume that the purpose of the Amendment is to make it legal for a local authority to do that, but my local authority has been doing it for a long time. I am also aware that the Association of Municipal Corporations is anxious that the Committee should accept the Amendment, and I have very great pleasure in supporting it.

Mr. Benn: I am now in a slight difficulty, Sir William. I was about to accept the Minister's assurance, but then he told me that he does not understand the wording either. However, assuming that the Parliamentary Secretary knows what is going on, we are prepared to accept the Amendment.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Bill reported, with an Amendment; as amended (in the Standing Committee and on recommittal), considered.

New Clause.—(POWER OF LOCAL AUTHORITIES TO AUTHORISE OTHERS TO COLLECT CHARGES FOR OFF-STREET PARKING PLACES IN RETURN FOR LUMP SUM PAYMENTS.)

A local authority (within the meaning of section eighty-one of the Road Traffic Act, 1960), the council of a metropolitan borough and the London County Council shall have power, and (notwithstanding anything in that section as originally enacted or in the corresponding provision of the enactments repealed by that Act) shall be deemed always to have had power, to enter into arrangements with any person under which, in consideration of the payment by him to the authority or council of a lump sum, or series of lump sums, he is


authorised to collect and retain the charges made in respect of the parking of vehicles in an off-street parking place provided by the authority or council under that section or under that section as applied by virtue of section eighty-two of that Act or under the corresponding provisions of the enactments repealed by that Act.—[Mr. Marples.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Marples: I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
I will explain the purpose of the Clause quite simply, and any technical questions that I find I cannot answer I shall leave to my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to answer later. The purpose is quite simple. It is to allow a local authority which has provided off-street car parking to make a contract with, say, the British Legion, by which the British Legion collects the fees and pays a lump sum to the local authority.
Again, this is something that has been requested by the Association of Municipal Corporations. As I say, it provides that a local authority—that is, a county borough or county district—which has provided an off-street parking place and has, by order, imposed charges for the use of that parking place may—not shall, but may—enter into arrangements with some other person or body whereby the other person or body collects the charges and, in return, makes a lump sum payment to the local authority. The local authority pointed out that some doubt had been expressed whether, as the law now stands, a local authority could legally enter into such arrangements. Local authorities already make many arrangements of that sort, but as the law is in doubt it is as well to make it abundantly clear. I see no reason why a local authority should not let it to a first-class body if it so wishes.
6.15 p.m.
This enlarges the area of authority to local authorities. We are giving them a lot of power under the Bill. I am sure that the Opposition will be grateful for the extension of these facilities to local authorities. I hope that the proposed new Clause will be accepted.

Dr. Stross: I assume that local authorities may enter into a contract for this purpose, not only with the British Legion, but with any person or body they may like?

Mr. Marples: Yes.

Mr. Benn: Naturally we welcome any extension of the power of local authorities which will enable them to conduct their affairs more efficiently. The only anxiety that I have is whether, in a contract of this kind, a situation might develop under which a local authority received a lump sum payment for making the parking place available and in return handed over a parking place which was far more valuable than was first thought likely. There may be a danger that the British Legion or a private firm may get hold of an immensely profitable site and make a lump payment for it, and then the local authority may be denied what would be its fair return for the land because it had not anticipated the value of it when it let it to the body that sub-contracts the work of building the parking place.

Mr. Marples: I take the point of the hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn). It may be possible that a long-term contract will be made which turns out to be profitable to the British Legion or to any other body. But the reverse may be the case. A loss may be made. It is up to the local authority to be shrewd enough to arrange the terms accordingly. The local authority could make a short-term contract with a series of lump sum payments to be received. It may make an arrangement with the British Legion and say. "You can have this for six months at so much. You pay us what you get for it or X percentage of what you collect. At the end of six months we will revise it and give you first option of taking it on again." It is up to the shrewdness of local authorities to use these flexible powers in a way which will not harm the interests of the ratepayers.

Mr. Benn: By leave of the House, I should like to say that, on the understanding that a local authority is enabled to make a contract which will permit a sliding scale so that on behalf of the ratepayers it may make the best possible deal, we on this side are ready to support the proposal.

Mr. Marples: I should have asked for the leave of the House to speak again. I apologise, Mr. Speaker, for not having done so.

Mr. Speaker: The House appeared to have granted leave. I do not think the right hon. Gentleman required it strictly.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

Clause 1.—(PUNISHMENT WITHOUT PROSECUTION OF OFFENCES INCONNECTION WITH LIGHTS, REFLECTORS, OBSTRUCTION, ETC.)

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. David Renton): I beg to move, in page 2, line 9, to leave out from "offering" to the end of line 11 and insert:
the option of payment of a fixed penalty under this section without prosecution for that offence; and no person shall then be liable to be convicted of that offence".
I suggest that it might be convenient to discuss with this Amendment the Amendment in page 2, line 15.

Mr. Speaker: Yes.

Mr. Renton: These two Amendments improve the drafting of the Clause without seriously altering its substance. They also remove doubts which were expressed in Committee about the consequences of the issue of a ticket.
As drafted, subsections (2) and (3) have the effect of limiting the consequences of serving a ticket to the person to whom the ticket is given whether or not he is the person liable for the offence. As was explained in Committee, the warden or constable will not normally even see anyone connected with the vehicle. He will simply stick the ticket to the vehicle. There will, however, be rare cases when the ticket is handed to the individual. On some of these occasions the warden or constable may be mistaken in believing that that is the person who has committed the offence. In such a case it is important that there should be no suggestion that the option offered by the ticket is confined to the person to whom it is handed. The Amendment makes it clear that the option is not so confined.
The second point with which the Amendments deal is this. There has been some confusion as to what might happen in a case in which there was more than one person liable in the same set of circumstances. An obvious example is

where a person has parked a vehicle unlawfully. He would be a person liable. But so would be an owner of a vehicle who allowed a vehicle to remain parked unlawfully. We feel that we ought to cover that contingency.
Under the procedure proposed in the Bill, neither the police nor the justice's clerk who is required to receive the payment will be concerned with the identity of the person who pays. If the payment is received within the time allowed, the offence will be expiated, written off, and no inquiries will be made to discover who was liable. In practice, therefore, the payment of the fixed penalty will have the effect of exempting anybody who might be liable.
In view of the doubts that have arisen, it seemed desirable to make this plain in the Bill. The Amendments make it clear that once a ticket has been issued none of the people liable for an offence arising out of the circumstances specified on the ticket can be prosecuted during the period of option. It will also have the result that none of them can be convicted if the fixed penalty is paid. I hope that these slight changes of emphasis commend themselves to the House.

Mr. Benn: I should like to thank the Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Amendments which, although I do not think are in discharge of a pledge to consider the matter again in Committee, definitely represent an improvement on the Bill as drafted. We recognise what a sacrifice it is for a practising lawyer to introduce an Amendment which removes doubt. We pay tribute to the hon. and learned Gentleman for that.
It is clear that very real difficulties could be created if three men were each partially responsible for a parking offence, as could happen. One man may own the car, the second man may leave it in a place where later in the day he becomes liable, and the third man who should have picked it up may leave it even longer and also be liable. In so far as the Amendment lifts a burden of anxiety from a larger number of Her Majesty's subjects, we accept it gratefully and with many thanks.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made: In page 2, line 15, leave out "him" and insert "any person for that offence".—[Mr. Renton.]

Mr. Renton: I beg to move, in page 2, line 19, to leave out from "option" to the end of line 21.
Subsection (3) as it stands precludes the police or local authority from taking proceedings for an offence in respect of a ticket issued during the period allowed for payment of the fixed penalty, subject to this qualification, that proceedings may be begun within that time if the person to whom the ticket was given or who received it eventually states that he does not intend to pay the fixed penalty. The effect of the Amendment is to remove the qualification and to put an absolute bar on proceedings during the period of the option.
As with the previous two Amendments, we found that this is desirable because of the rare occasion when the ticket is handed to a person instead of being fixed to a vehicle. The constable or warden may be mistaken in thinking that the person to whom he gives the ticket is the person liable for the offence. The present provision would be inappropriate if that person is not liable, and the purpose of the Amendment is to clarify the position.

Mr. Benn: We welcome the Amendment partly because it is a good Amendment and partly because it shortens the Bill. A very real problem could arise if a constable or traffic warden gave a man a ticket in the belief that he was liable when he was not, and the man became extremely angry and wrote to the justices saying that under no circumstances would he pay the penalty.
In those circumstances, proceedings might be begun prematurely against the wrong person. The Amendment provides as big a safeguard as we can reasonably hope for, that the right person will not be charged too soon because previously the wrong person had been charged too early.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Renton: I beg to move, in page 3, line 4, to leave out "that person" and to insert:
the person liable for that offence".
This is a drafting Amendment and is consequential on previous Amendments.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made: In page 3, line 8, leave out from "person" to end of line and insert:
liable for the offence in question".—[Mr. Renton.]

Clause 2.—(TRAFFIC WARDENS.)

Mr. Renton: I beg to move, in page 4, to leave out lines 32 to 34 and to insert:
An order under this subsection shall be made by statutory instrument, and—

(a) in the case of an order made before the first day of October, nineteen hundred and sixty, shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament;
(b) in any other case, shall not be made unless a draft thereof has been laid before, and approved by resolution of, each House of Parliament.

This Amendment is in pursuance of an undertaking given in Committee. I think that I bound the Government to do what is proposed by the Amendment.
In its present form, the Bill provides that all orders made by the Secretary of State under this subsection, which are orders prescribing the functions to be carried out by traffic wardens, shall be subject to annulment by negative Resolution of this House. In Committee, hon. Members were very understanding. They realised that if we transferred completely to the affirmative Resolution procedure there might be an unfortunate delay in getting the traffic wardens into operation. Nevertheless, even though the affirmative Resolution procedure might be desirable in the long run, they conceded that, because we are likely to go into a fairly long Parliamentary recess and would not wish to hold things up until Parliament reassembles, for the first order at any rate the negative Resolution procedure could be accepted.
The effect of the Amendment is that an order made before 1st October this year will be subject to annulment in pursuance of the negative Resolution procedure and after that the affirmative Resolution procedure will apply.

6.30 p.m.

Mr. Benn: We are extremely grateful for this Amendment. This is a point of considerable substance, but there is no need to rehearse all the points raised in Committee about it. We are extremely anxious that the traffic warden system, to which this applies, should be brought


in at every stage with full understanding, co-operation, discussion and debate. I know that the hon. and learned Gentleman, whose Department is responsible for the police, is very anxious for this as well.
We raised this in Committee, and several of my hon. Friends made suggestions about combining the need for speed in getting the wardens into operation by Christmas with opportunities for discussion afterwards. The Amendment does not go quite as far as we would have liked, but it provides us with as much Parliamentary control as we can reasonably hope for. It proves that the old argument about affirmative and negative Resolutions is not merely an


"but shall be so framed as to secure that a local authority thereby empowered to make designation orders shall not make such an order designating parking places on, or otherwise making provision with respect to, a highway for which they are not the highway authority except with the consent of that authority".


I am glad to see the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) here, because this Amendment is intended to meet a point which he raised with us in Committee. Clause 5 deals with orders designating parts of streets, as parking places where payment may be made by means of parking meters, outside the London traffic area. Subsection (7) of the Clause gives the Minister power to devolve upon local authorities the power of making designation orders at some time in the future. Subsection (8) adds that if the Minister does exercise this power he may make certain conditions and exceptions in devolving it, and also that he may modify what I called in Committee, and call again, the parking meter procedure code, contained in the Tenth Schedule to the Road Traffic Act, 1960.
This code sets out the various steps that must be complied with as and when a parking meter is applied for and put in practice. In Committee, the right hon. Member for South Shields drew attention to the fact that under subsection (8) it is possible for the Minister to modify the code, and one of the points in the code is that the local authority which is making a designation order may not be a highway authority, and that in that case, so says the code in the Tenth Schedule, it must operate only

argument between the Government and the Opposition of the day but is one of substance, particularly in a matter of this kind, where it is possible for the Government to be convinced of the desirability of giving Parliament the opportunity to discuss things. We believe that the Amendment, though it looks like a procedural one, will help float the traffic warden scheme happily and successfully.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 5.—(DESIGNATION ORDERS OUTSIDE LONDON TRAFFIC AREA.)

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. John Hay): I beg to move, in page 9, line 36. at the end to insert:
with the consent of the highway authority.
The right hon. Gentleman pointed out that it would be possible, in devolving the power to make a designation order upon the local authority, for the Minister, if he so desired, to modify the code and leave out that requirement for the local authority to act only with the consent of the highway authority. We undertook to look at that point. This Amendment is intended to meet it, and it deals satisfactorily with it. I need say no more in explaining it. It looks complicated, but that is its intention. Perhaps it will help the right hon. Gentleman if I say that we are willing to accept the Amendment which he has tabled to my Amendment.

Mr. Ede: I thank the hon. Gentleman the Joint Parliamentary Secretary not merely for the way in which he has explained this Amendment, but also for the courtesy he showed in writing to me and indicating how much better a draftsman a professional draftsman is than any amateur who attempts to wander into his province. I accept the words that he proposes, but, inasmuch as this is a matter which might give rise to friction between local authorities, I should be obliged if he would carry this courtesy a little further and


accept my Amendment, which would mean inserting the words "in writing". If that requirement were present, there should be no chance of the mere courtesy of asking permission being overlooked. I again thank the hon. Gentleman very sincerely for the way in which he has met the point which I raised in Committee.

Mr. Hay: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman did not quite catch what I said. I stated that we would have no objection to accepting the Amendment which he has tabled to our Amendment.

Mr. Benn: We are getting so complicated with Amendments to Amendments that the House will be glad to hear that I am not rising to move a manuscript Amendment to the Amendment to the Amendment. I rise to say that although this exchange of courtesies is very pleasing, all this is subject to the limitation in Clause 7. Supposing a local authority makes a designation order affecting another local authority and forgets to seek its consent in writing within six weeks, that oversight will be indemnified by the statutory limitation in Clause 7. Before there is too much congratulation, I must remind the House that there are certain risks even in this Amendment as accepted.

Mr. Ede: If an authority which had not been informed in writing allowed this operation to go on for six weeks without any protest, it would deserve all that was coming to it.

question proposed, That those words be there inserted the Bill.

Proposed words amended in line 4, by inserting after "consent", the words "in writing".—[Mr. Ede]—and, as amended, there inserted in the Bill.

Clause 7.—(LIMITATION OF RIGHT TO CHALLENGE DESIGNATION ORDERS IN LEGAL PROCEEDINGS.)

Mr. Benn: I beg to move, in page 10, line 33, to leave out "weeks" and to insert "months".
I gave a forecast of this problem a moment ago. The position under the Bill is much too drastic. A local authority which is given power or a Minister who is given power to make designation orders, if they make a mistake in fulfilling

the many statutory requirements laid down in the Bill, however great that mistake may be, are still covered by the total indemnity six weeks afterwards.
We discussed this in Committee at length and had a debate which rather horrified me and some of my hon. Friends because we felt that this was not the way to produce the result intended. To give the Minister and the Government full credit, they intend that if there is a mistake made by a local authority, an inconsequential mistake which only comes to light six months or indeed six years after a designation order has been made, the order should not, for that reason, be able to be upset, and the whole question of the operation of the order over a long period should not be brought to nought because of a technical failure.
The Government have decided to write in a provision that after six weeks everything will be all right, even if the law has not been applied. This is unsatisfactory. The only precedent that could be cited by the Joint Parliamentary Secretary was from the Housing Acts after the war. We do not feel that that is comparable. A designation order creates the offence of parking within an area where parking is to be prohibited. We do not think that an order which creates an offence and which is, perhaps, wrongly made and does not comply with the Statute, ought to be upheld by a court subsequently.
We fully recognised in Committee, and we recognise it again now, that we have got to be prepared to overlook certain errors if they occur, in order to safeguard a local authority from frivolous prosecutions of one kind or another, but that is not at all the same thing as saying that to do that we must say that a six weeks' statute of limitation is required.
We had in mind that there should be no statute of limitation at all, but that the Minister should have the power retrospectively by order to legalise a designation order which was illegal provided he brought his order to Parliament. In other words, we were prepared to give him the power under the Bill provided he came to Parliament and explained the case. But the Minister would not budge on it. We had in Committee upstairs a frustrating debate. We put the matter now in rather simpler form, namely, that we think that six


weeks is too short a period and that it ought to be six months.
I know that six months sounds rather a long time if there is a designation order and if there is six months' uncertainty hanging over it, and that a local authority may feel rather anxious. but, after all, it is the responsibility of a local authority, and of the Minister for that matter, to see that designation orders do comply with the law; and if they do comply with the law there is no uncertainty for a six-month period because no action can be brought against it.
Suppose, however, that a man is away on holiday and that a piece of land outside his house is wrongly designated—say, a couple of hundred yards of private road. It could happen. This Clause says that the error shall be legalised. We think that a man ought not to suffer in consequence of any error of the sort.
We would rather the period were six months. We think that six weeks is too short. It may be that six months is too long, but, anyhow, we think that the period ought to longer than six weeks. It has to be remembered that people with delegated powers under an Act of Parliament should fulfil the requirements of the law, and if they do not they must expect to suffer and expect to be called to account.
So I move the Amendment hoping that it will be considered very seriously. We hope that it will have the effect on those making designation orders of seeing that they are properly made. If we make a statute of limitation under the Bill of six weeks, as I said in Committee, it has the effect of putting temptation in the way of local authorities not to be as careful, perhaps, as they should be about some of the very minor provisions, or what they may think are minor provisions, of the Statute. I know that the Minister's Department would always most scrupulously consider every aspect of the matter and would be most scrupulous in fulfilling its obligations, but some local authorities, perhaps very busy ones, might make a mistake, and the knowledge that they have a six weeks period to cover them may perhaps tempt them to be a little slapdash in their operations. So I move this Amendment in the hope that it will be considered by the House.

Mr. Hay: As the hon. Gentleman the Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) has said, we discussed this in Committee, and I think it was on this point that we had one of the few Divisions we had in Committee. As he has said, the purpose of the Clause as a whole is a limited one. Its intention—I am dealing with intention and not effect—is to protect local authorities from the possibility, which may be rare but which may not be rare, that a designation order saying that part of the street is to have parking meters put upon it may be successfully challenged in the courts.
6.45 p.m.
This could arise in two ways. It could arise because the court might decide that the designation order was ultra vires the Measure, or it might decide that the designation order was wrong because some procedural requirement laid down by the parking meter procedure code I referred to earlier had been overlooked.
Let me give the House two examples of the way in which this could come about. Let me draw the attention of the House to Section 87 of the Road Traffic Act, 1960, which contains the general provisions for the regulation of parking on highways where charges are made. Subsection (2) states:
A designation order may revoke the designation of any place as a parking place under section thirty-four or eighty-one of this Act and such an order … may provide that the designation shall not have effect as respects any time during which provision is made under section eighty-five of this Act for the leaving of vehicles in that place.
Put briefly, that means, as I understand it, that if we wish to have meter parking on the same place as we have had free parking places the designation order which we make to put in the meters may revoke the designation of that place as a free parking place, a designation which had been made, perhaps, some years before.
Suppose, as an example of how this provision in this Clause may work, the designation order by inadvertence did not revoke the designation of that free parking place. I think, to put it no higher, that it would be likely that someone might challenge the designation order on that ground, and say that it was wrong to have parking meters there because that was—and is—a free parking place, and, therefore, we had acted ultra vires our


powers in putting in parking meters pursuant to the designation order without having revoked the earlier designation of the place as a free parking place.

Mr. Benn: Of course, we all recognise that there are these small errors, but will the hon. Gentleman not admit to the House that even major errors would be covered by Clause 7?

Mr. Hay: I will not admit that. I am coming to that and what happens about major errors. I am not avoiding the point. I shall come to it when I reach that part of my speech.
Let me come to the case where a procedural error might be made. This is an example I gave in Committee. Under the Tenth Schedule to the 1960 Act, the procedure for the designation of a parking place requires that the times when the parking place is to be open for meter parking have to be advertised. Suppose that the order advertising the parking place does not state the times during which it is open. I would think that no one looking at either of these two examples—and there may be many more—would consider them major ones. The hon. Gentleman has admitted that in his view they are minor ones.
I must impress this upon the hon. Gentleman and upon the House as forcibly as I can that these minor errors might yet have the most serious consequences if they or any errors similar to them were not to be covered by this Clause. If we have a designation order called in question and, perhaps, declared ultra vires and void by the courts, then at once all the meters which have been installed become obstructions on the highway, and even obstructions from the very moment they were put in, because the order to put them there was void. It may well be that all these proceedings may have taken place a couple of years or even longer after the time when the parking meters were put there.
If the order was void ab initio, then any offence committed at any one of those parking places was not an offence; any money paid by way of fine was wrongfully paid; any conviction by a court was wrongfully made; any money collected by the local authority as fees for parking was wrongfully collected. The mind boggles at the possibility of having

to find out who the people were who paid this money into the parking meters over the years. These are possible consequences. It is not a fanciful situation; this is what could happen, and that is why we decided that there ought to be some point in time after making the designation order when there would be finality and local authorities would no longer be at risk.
The main point of the Amendment—and I understand that the principle behind the Clause is now accepted and that we are now arguing only about the time; that is, six weeks or six months—is that this period of six weeks is the proper time at which the barrier, so to speak, comes down, and the order, whether it is illegal or wrongly made or whether there have been inadvertent errors, is in full force and effect. I should tell the House and the hon. Gentleman why we say six weeks. The answer is that there is a long line of precedents, which I have now been able to obtain but which I did not have during the Committee stage, all of which use six weeks as the appropriate period
The first one I have been able to obtain is, it is true, the Housing Act of 1930. Section 11 of that Act places a six-weeks' limit on the right of an individual to challenge a clearance order relating to a house or property. That is going back to 1930, and that is the first one.

Mr. Benn: Was any offence created by that?

Mr. Hay: No. I have a precedent where an offence is created, but I will come to that in a moment.
The second example is the Acquisition of Land (Authorisation Procedure) Act, 1946, which the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) will remember as having been passed by the Government of which he was such a distinguished member. In paragraph 15 of the First Schedule to that Act, it is stated that the vires of a compulsory purchase order cannot be challenged after six weeks. I come next to the Special Roads Act, 1949, which again was passed by the Labour Government. Section 14 of this Act provides that the vires of trunk road orders cannot be challenged after six weeks have gone by.
Then comes the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act, 1949. Section 93 and paragraph 8 of the First Schedule of this Act have equivalent provisions. In Section 93 of this Act, certain local authorities can make orders restricting the use of roads in National Parks by all manner of vehicles and penalties are attached. Local authorities can make orders imposing penalties for misuse by vehicles of the National Parks, and, under paragraph 8 of the First Schedule to this Act, such orders made by local authorities imposing penalties cannot be challenged after six weeks have gone by.
Finally, I must put this one to the House. When this House two or three years ago was considering the Tribunals and Inquiries Bill, which is now on the Statute Book, this very point came up. In fact, if we look at Section 11 (3) of the Tribunals and Inquiries Act, 1958, we see this sort of provision, providing that the vires of an order shall not be challenged after the passage of a given time, was expressly excluded from the protective provisions which were being put into that Act, the protective provisions being the supervisory powers of the superior court.
I hope the House will, therefore, agree that we have chosen this period of six weeks, not at a venture, but on the basis of a large number of highly respectable precedents. We have also chosen it on the basis of the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act, which contains this element of offence to which the hon. Gentleman referred. I hope that in the light of that explanation and argument the House will agree to passing this Clause unamended.
It may be said that we are affecting the rights of individuals by this Clause. That is true, but I suggest that this House has affected the rights of individuals very much more in the past, for example, by this procedure for the axe coming down after six weeks on the right to challenge clearance orders and compulsory purchase orders. I do not think it can be said that in the case of the two examples I have given—the withdrawal of free car parking or failure to advertise times when a parking meter place is open—the rights of individuals have been or would be much more seriously affected than in those cases of property.
Finally, I come to the point about major errors. It is common ground between both sides of the House that we are intending here to deal with minor errors inadvertently made. Major errors, such as were mentioned by the hon. Gentleman, cannot escape in our procedure under this Bill and the procedure already laid down in the 1960 Act. First of all, there must be advertising of the designation order, and that is a pretty good safeguard for the public. If there is an error, it is highly likely, I suggest, that it will be picked up at that stage. I am now talking about a major error.

Mr. Benn: But what if the major error is that they forgot to advertise? That is the point I have in mind.

Mr. Hay: Again, I ask the hon. Gentleman to be patient. I come to the next stage. Let us take the case where they fail to advertise. They have to come to the Minister as the very next stage, for the Minister is the confirming authority for designation orders. The hon. Gentleman has only to look at Clause 3 (3) and (4) and Clause 5 (8) to see what the safeguards are there. The Minister is the confirming authority. If, for example, the local authority had not advertised—a major error—it is quite obvious that the Minister will say at once, "This Order will not be confirmed by me, because it has not been advertised". There is an even further safeguard. Even if they could get that past the Minister, the Order still has to be laid before Parliament, and this House has the right, indeed the duty, in a case like that, to challenge it.
I hope the House will agree that, on any reasonable and logical view of this matter, it is right that we should have this provision of six weeks to deal with minor errors, and that the risk of major errors slipping through is so small as to be almost, to use a lawyer's expression, de minimis—something of which we need take no notice. What we need is some kind of provision, which this Clause gives, to give local authorities the cover against minor errors in the past, and, in addition, the certainty that the order will continue to operate until a new one is made. That is the purpose of this Clause, and I think it is


absolutely essential that we should have a Clause like this if we are to avoid possible chaos. In the light of that explanation, I ask the hon. Gentleman to consider withdrawing his Amendment.

Mr. Benn: This has been a rather moving afternoon. The partnership between the Minister and the Joint Parliamentary Secretary is quite touching. Earlier, I asked the Minister if he understood the Bill, and he said "No, but my hon. Friend does". Then, I moved an Amendment to rule out errors, and the Joint Parliamentary Secretary said that they could not happen because his right hon. Friend would always look at it. The fact that they have confidence in each other discharges us from having confidence in either, but it would be churlish of me to press the Amendment after such a demonstration of virtuosity by the research department of the Ministry of Transport, when I think of the hours they must have spent going through all the Acts to find out where this six weeks' period is laid down. I think that one point the hon. Gentleman forgot was that the 1930 Act was also passed by a Labour Government.

Mr. Hay: I had not forgotten it, but I thought it was kinder not to remind the House of it. The party was in office, but not in power.

Mr. Benn: If the hon. Gentleman is sparing our feelings—I was not in the House myself at the time—it is an extra reason for accepting his argument. As a matter of fact, I must confess that now he recites for the benefit of the House the safeguards there would be against major errors, I am disposed, on the arguments of the case, as well as personal affection for him, to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 11.—(MISCELLANEOUS AMENDMENTS AS TO LOCAL AUTHORITIES' PARKING PLACES AND TRAFFIC SCHEMES.)

7.0 p.m.

Mr. Marples: I beg to move, in page 14, line 38 to leave out "to the authority".
The Amendment is consequential on the new Clause which I moved to allow a local authority to employ such bodies as the British Legion to run their car parks for them.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Hay: I beg to move, in page 17, line 29 to leave out from the first "to" to the end of the line.
I suggest that if it is convenient to you, Mr. Speaker, and the House we might also discuss the remaining Amendments to the Clause:
In line 32 leave out "accordingly".
In line 34 leave out "those councils" and insert:
local authorities in the administrative county of London".
In page 18, line 28, after "London", insert:
(apart from the City of London)".
In line 33, after "done", insert "by such a council".
In line 38, at end insert:
(17) Nothing in this section shall affect the Restriction of Ribbon Development (Power to provide Parking Places) Order, 1936, so far as it applies to the City of London or apply to any bylaws having effect as respects the City of London by virtue of that Order; and that Order, so far as it so applies, shall have effect by virtue of this subsection.
The main purpose of this series of Amendments is to take the City of London out of Clause 11 altogether. The reason is that we wish the City, which has a number of special positions, to continue to avail itself of the provisions of its own local Acts as they relate to the provision of off-street car parks. Section 81 of the Road Traffic Act, 1960, gives powers to local authorities outside the administrative county of London to provide off-street car parks. These powers are amended and extended in various ways by the present Clause.
Section 82 of the Road Traffic Act, 1960, provides that the Minister of Housing and Local Government may by order confer similar powers on the Common Council of the City of London, on the Metropolitan borough councils and upon London County Council, but not in the City. In 1936 the then Minister of Health made an order conferring these powers on the Common Council of the City of London and on the Metropolitan


boroughs but not on London County Council. Clause 11 (12) at present provides for the repeal of Section 82 of the Road Traffic Act, 1960, and for these powers to be conferred directly upon the Common Council of the City of London, upon the metropolitan boroughs and upon London County Council, but it contains a proviso that London County Council is not to exercise its powers in the City of London or in the metropolitan boroughs unless it has the consent of the council of the borough.
The City of London, which already had in effect Section 81 powers because of the order made by the Minister of Health in 1936, took additional powers in 1957 by a local Act. Section 12 of that Act, the City of London (Various Powers) Act, 1957, gave the City power to develop car parks. It removed the provision for a right of appeal to magistrates and provided that byelaws made by the City need no longer be confirmed by the Minister of Transport but only by the Home Secretary.
Clause 26 of the City of London (Various Powers) Bill now before Parliament, to which my right hon. Friend has raised no objection on behalf of the Government, provides that in future the City of London need not make byelaws but need merely prescribe such matters as the class of vehicles to be parked, the charges to be paid and the times when car parks may be used. These powers are not conferred on the City under local Acts but are stated to be an extension of powers conferred upon the City by the 1936 Order made by the then Minister of Health, which is called the Restriction of Ribbon Development (Power to provide Parking Places) Order, 1936. The powers conferred on the City by these local Acts go further than the powers to be conferred by this Bill. The City is also allowed to prescribe charges for its car parks rather than to be required to make orders.
We have decided that the City should be allowed to keep its present local Act powers and, because it desires to deal flexibly, particularly with regard to charges, with the parking arrangements which have to be made from time to time for the somewhat special functions in the City of London it has been decided that it should be allowed to prescribe charges to be paid and should

not be required to deal with these by order under the procedure whereby the Minister takes power under subsection (11) of the Clause. Therefore, we have to provide that the powers of the City should be continued and should not be affected by the passage of the Bill.
As the powers of the City derive from the 1936 Order and are not conferred directly upon it, it means that we must provide that the Order shall continue to have effect in respect of the City despite the fact that we are repealing Section 82 of the Road Traffic Act, 1960. That is the purpose of the Amendment in page 18, line 38, to insert the subsection (17).
I am sorry that I have had to give the House a somewhat complicated explanation. I have referred copiously to some notes that I have had prepared on this matter and therefore I hope that I have it right, but briefly it is the intention to take the City of London right out of Clause 11 and allow it to continue under Private Act powers.

Mr. R. J. Mellish: We are much obliged to the Joint Parliamentary Secretary for the lengthy but very clear way in which he has tried to overcome what appears to be an intricate problem. As I understand it, certain powers which the City now has will be allowed to remain in respect of parking places and so on, but I should like to have one point made perfectly clear. Was this matter discussed with the Metropolitan Boroughs Standing Joint Committee? I assume that there will be no objection by the Metropolitan boroughs to the fact that the City Council is to retain these powers.
If my noble Friend, Lord Morrison, were here no doubt we should have a very long debate about this. He would argue that the City Council has no special right at all in London and is allowed there only by permission of one or two people in this House. But we are not quite so insistent as my right hon. Friend might have been. I should like to know, however, whether the Metropolitan boroughs were consulted on this matter. May I assume that they were?

Mr. Hay: I frankly do not know. I know that we had a great deal of discussion with the Metropolitan Boroughs Standing Joint Committee on a whole


range of problems. Whether the Committee was expressly consulted on these Amendments and on our intention to take the City of London out of Clause 11 I honestly do not know, but I can find out if the hon. Member feels strongly about it and let him know. I imagine that in all probability we discussed it, but perhaps not in the great detail that the hon. Member imagines.

Mr. Benn: Was it discussed with the Member of Parliament for the area concerned?

Mr. Hay: No, we did not have a discussion in this case.

Mr. Ede: The Joint Parliamentary Secretary has given us a long list of the special powers which have been conferred in the past on the unreformed Corporation of the City of London, and I understand that these are to be continued and I am not sure that in one or two cases they are not to bet extended.
There is one point on which I should like to have some information. In those cases where the City Corporation has the right to prescribe things and to make orders of some kind or another, is any power given to any person to object to such a prescription or order? If so, to whom does the objector give his notice that he is anxious that the City Corporation should not be so endowed? Elsewhere in the Bill, the ordinary citizen has power to object if only he does it quickly enough. Can he object if he has such an interest in the City as should entitle him to be able to object as an ordinary citizen? If so, before what tribunal will his objection be heard?

Mr. Hay: Whilst the right hon. Gentleman has been speaking, I have been trying to find a rapid answer. I have with me a copy of Section 12 of the City of London (Various Powers) Act, 1957, which I thought might give the answer, but it does not. It is important to realise that the matters that are normally dealt with under order and which will continue to be dealt with under the Private Act powers are matters in which I should not have thought that objection was likely to arise. They relate to the provision of parking places, the restriction

of certain types of vehicles that may not use them or the limitation of use to certain types of vehicle, the making of charges, and so on. Matters of that kind would not be likely to cause objection to anybody except, possibly, the owner or user of a class of vehicle that was excluded from the park.
I must confess my ignorance to the right hon. Gentleman. I do not know whether there is provision for objection and how it would operate if there is one. I am, however, willing to look into the point and, if it appears necessary for us to take action, we will seek to do it in another place. I think it better to leave the matter as it is on the assumption that there is no necessity for a procedure for objection in cases of this kind.

Mr. Ede: I would have thought that a citizen of what I, and a great many other people, regard as the greatest city in the world should be in a position, if his local authority does something which he does not like, of having adequate means of expressing his views. We ought not to assume that everybody who lives —I emphasise "lives"—in the City of London is a plutocrat. He may well object to a parking fee being demanded that is beyond his resources. There should be some body which is capable of dealing with these adjustments, otherwise let the City Corporation at last come under the Municipal Corporations Act, 1835.

Mr. Hay: I think I shall have your sympathy, Mr. Speaker, if nobody else's, if I express the hope that we can bring this discussion quickly to a close, because I am under the handicap that I do not know the answer to the point raised by the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede). I am told that those who advise me would not be able to obtain the answer except with great difficulty and the expenditure of considerable time. Thirdly, the right hon. Gentleman is raising a fairly big issue concerning the future of the City of London as an element of the local government structure of the country on what is only a limited Amendment. I hope that for these reasons he will be kind enough to excuse me from giving a more detailed reply.

Mr. Ede: One has always to take one's chances as they occur.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendments made: In page 17, line 32, leave out "accordingly".

In line 34, leave out "those councils" and insert:
local authorities in the administrative county of London.

In page 18, line 28, after "London", insert:
(apart from the City of London).

In line 33, after "done", insert "by such a council."—[Mr. Hay.]

Amendment proposed: In page 18, line 38, at end, insert:
(17) Nothing in this section shall affect the Restriction of Ribbon Development (Power to provide Parking Places) Order, 1936, so far as it applies to the City of London or apply to any byelaws having effect as respects the City of London by virtue of that Order; and that Order, so far as it so applies, shall have effect by virtue of this subsection.—[Mr. Hay.]

7.15 p.m.

Mr. Benn: I take it that all these Amendments are, in fact, consequential. Nobody has said so. Since the Joint Parliamentary Secretary has been so honest in confessing that there are certain areas of public policy which are not at his finger-tips all the time and since we have accepted ignorance as the best case for passing the Bill at such speed, I hope that we shall be assured that these Amendments relate entirely to the cogent arguments that the hon. Gentleman has just given us.

Mr. Hay: I can give that assurance. The Amendments are consequential on the Amendment in page 17, line 29. Perhaps it is only in respect of this present Amendment that consequentiality is not the full answer. Clause 11 (12) of the Bill provides for the repeal of Section 82 of the Road Traffic Act, 1960. We desire to continue in force the local Act powers of the City of London, which depend upon the Restriction of Ribbon Development (Power to provide Parking Places) Order, 1936. For this reason, we must provide that despite the repeal of Section 82, the Order will continue in force only so far as it applies to the City of London. That is the effect of the new subsection (17).
Subsections (15) and (16) of the Clause contain certain transitional provisions. In particular, they provide that bye-laws which have been made under Section 81 of the Road Traffic Act, 1960, shall have effect as if their provisions had been contained in an order made under subsection (2) of that Section. As the City of London is to be excluded from the Section and, therefore, will not be able to make such orders, it will be necessary to provide that its bye-laws continue in effect despite the provisions of the Clause.
The City is seeking by its current Bill in Parliament to provide that in future it shall not make bye-laws which are confirmable by the Minister of Transport, but shall be able to prescribe without any formal procedure the various matters which at present have to be dealt with by bye-law. I hope that this explanation clears up the difficulty about the consequentiality of the Amendments.

Mr. Benn: It is a great deal to ask, Mr. Speaker, but we do it for you.

Mr. Speaker: I am eternally obliged to the hon. Member.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 12.—(ADDITIONAL POWERS OF LOCAL AUTHORITIES IN CONNECTION WITH PROVISION OF OFF-STREET PARKING PLACES.)

Mr. Marples: I beg to move, in page 19, line 17, at the end to insert:
(4A) Land compulsorily acquired by such an authority as aforesaid otherwise than for the provision of an off-street parking place and not appropriated for a purpose other than that for which it was acquired shall not be used by them for the provision of an off-street parking place thereon for a period exceeding twelve months except with the consent of that Minister of the Crown who, at the time when consent is sought, is the Minister concerned with the function for the purposes of which the land was acquired.
Earlier, I moved an Amendment in page 19, line 17, which would allow a local authority which acquired a site for building to use it temporarily as a car park and to spend money on it and to charge members of the public for the parking of their cars. When a local authority buys the land, normally by negotiation, it is only right that it should have power to use it for a car park as long as it wishes to do so.
The present Amendment distinguishes between land which is bought by negotiation and land which is bought by compulsion, for the following reason. When it is bought compulsorily, the land is bought for a specific purpose and it would he wrong for the local authority to use it for another purpose without a time limit or check being imposed. The Amendment places a check upon the local authority. If it buys a site compulsorily for the building of a block of flats but decides instead to build a car park, at the expiration of twelve months it must apply to the appropriate Minister for permission to continue. If there is a valid reason, permission would, no doubt, be given.
The Amendment will prevent the abuse of land which is bought compulsorily for one purpose being used for another purpose. I think that the House will agree that in all the circumstances the Amendment is reasonable.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Hay: I beg to move, in page 19, line 27, to leave out from "shall" to the end of line 28.
This Amendment is consequential on the new Clause introduced earlier by my right hon. Friend enabling a local authority to farm out the right to raise money by car park fees in return for a lump sum payment.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Mellish: I beg to move, in page 19, line 38, to leave out from "provided" to the end of line 39.
The Amendment will be familiar to the Government. In Committee, it was another of the Amendments upon which we had a short but fierce debate. All sorts of issues arose, but I do not want to traverse the whole ground again. I had hoped that after giving the matter thought the Minister and his Joint Parliamentary Secretary would be in a rather different mood.
The new Clause introduced earlier by the right hon. Gentleman gives permissive powers to a local authority to use land for certain purposes if it so desires. It is quite proper that a local authority which has spare lots of land should use them as parking places if it so desires. The Amendment seeks to

give local authorities the right, in areas where they have off-street parking places, to trade in oil, lubricants and so on.
Subsection (5) specifies that local authorities
shall not themselves sell or supply fuel or lubricants".
It is monstrous in an Act of Parliament to debar a local authority from selling these items. The Amendment proposes the deletion of these words, because we want the House of Commons to tell local authorities that they may sell these things if they consider it worth while to do so.
In Committee, it was said that local authorities were not capable of undertaking this trade and that private enterprise was much better able to sell these things, and that is true. I find that in London the vast majority of local authorities would not wish to engage in this trade. Therefore, they would not be interested in having permissive power. On the other hand, many authorities might find it convenient to sell fuel or lubricants to those who use the parking places. In his reply in Committee, the Minister said that local authorities can nevertheless arrange for these items to be sold at the parking place or garage but that they must not sell them themselves and that private enterprise must do it. I see no justification for that. There is no logic in laying down a law that denies local authorities the right to engage in local enterprise. If, having engaged in such enterprise, a local authority makes an utter failure of it, the ratepayers would have something to say about it.
Ours is a democratic approach. As I said in Committee, the party opposite has every reason to be proud of the recent local election results, and there are many new Conservative councillors. We do not deny that it was a great victory. We might just as well say to those who have won this victory at the poll, however, that the Government do not trust any of them, whether Conservative or Labour, or dare to enter into trading of this kind and are specifying in law that they shall not sell anything of this nature but must leave it to private enterprise.
In moving the Amendment, we hope that we shall find the Minister in a better spirit. There has been a great deal of charm in our debates this evening; we have been getting on well. I advise the Minister to ask his hon.
Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to reply. He is doing very well, and he might give us a logical reason why public enterprise should be denied the right to sell. I beg the party opposite to believe that this is a non-party point. We are putting it forward in the belief that local authorities should be allowed to sell where they want to, and should not be stopped by law.

7.30 p.m.

Mr. Cyril Bence: I support the Amendment. Some of us have for long been trying to get sanction for the building of petrol stations on many of our trunk roads. I expect that the same conditions apply in both England and Scotland. There is a reluctance to encourage the growth of filling stations on the main roads, and I can understand that, but I sometimes get upset when I find that, although an applicant has been refused permission to build a filling station, a bewer has been allowed to put up a public house. But I do not want to go too far into that element. I simply say that I would rather have a station that fills an engine with useful fuel than one which fills a human being with what I call "madman's gravy".
Many municipal car parks are not used to the extent they would be if there were a filling station close at hand. In many cases, if a filling station were situated near a car park it would be commercially profitable only in a certain season, and private enterprise will not construct filling stations in such positions. Around the coast of Scotland one sees many cases of municipal car parks not used to their fullest extent because there are no fueling facilities nearby. Cars are parked all over the place. I remember my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Scotstoun (Mr. Small) telling me that on one Sunday in Largs the owners of 20 cars were prosecuted for parking on a road not far from a filling station, while the municipal car park was empty. If there had been a filling station near that car park, with free air and service, the cars would have gone there.
A municipal authority is charged with the duty of providing parking space. Therefore, I cannot see why it should not be allowed to provide facilities for maintenance, repairs and servicing. I

agree that it would be a bad thing to compel local authorities to do it, but I cannot see why they should not be permitted to do it. It is nonsense to argue that a local authority, which administers and disposes of some very intricate and difficult matters in the administration of its area, large or small, is incompetent to have control of a car park plus a filling station with maintenance and servicing facilities.
Many of our local authorities have great experience in the servicing, fuelling and repair of vehicles. If I had to put my car in for repair I would rather take it to a municipal garage in Clydebank than to some of the motor garage repair and service stations that I know in Dunbartonshire. I do not say that is always the case, but many local authorities run heavy transport services and have the necessary personnel, equipment and organisation to provide better servicing than some of the smaller garages. I agree that the mechanics working for the main private organisations are first-class. They have training courses at factories, and do first-class work. But I resent the argument that local authorities are incompetent to do this sort of thing.

Mr. Speaker: I must ask the hon. Member to relate his observations to the Amendment, which has nothing to do with providing buildings, facilities and apparatus. It deals with the question whether local authorities should supply and sell fuels and lubricants.

Mr. Bence: I am sorry if I wandered off the road a little, Mr. Speaker. I did not think that I had got into the ditch. I was illustrating the fact that many local authorities already have these facilities, not at car parks, but in their own services.

Mr. Speaker: That is the trouble. That is what is out of order. The question is whether or not local authorities should be allowed to sell or supply fuel and lubricants, and that is the only point with which we are concerned.

Mr. Bence: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I see no reason why a local authority which has the duty of providing parking places should not be allowed to supply fuel and lubricants in order to lessen the burden on the rates and help it to recover the cost of the establishment of a car park. I cannot understand anyone objecting to a local authority providing


facilities to sell motorists cups of tea, or any sort of fuel, or to sell refreshments to motorists and provide all sorts of facilities.

Mr. Mellish: What about whisky?

Mr. Bence: I am not talking about whisky, and I should oppose any Amendment which proposed that. I do not regard that as a lubricant. However, I do not want to get out of order again.

Mr. Geoffrey Wilson: Does the hon. Member appreciate that he is answering his own argument? He started by asking why local authorities should not sell petrol and has gone on to suggest that they might sell other things. He may have heard my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary give a whole list of precedents of what has happened in other cases, and if he did he will appreciate why we do not encourage municipal authorities to indulge in trading. It goes from one thing to another.

Mr. Bence: I would oppose any proposal that local authorities should sell whisky to people in charge of motor cars. I even object to publicans doing it. I look forward to the day when a man driving a car will have no right to take alcohol.
The bigger local authorities would not bother with this proposal, but many small authorities would find it a great asset to be able to provide these facilities. I would also be an asset to the motorist, and would do no injury to the private trader.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis: After the technical tranquillities of the last hour from the two Front Benches, we now seem to have descended into the political arena. I shall not attempt to follow the argument of the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence) in case I find myself in trouble.
When the Clause was debated in Committee the hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) described those of us who tried to assist the passage of the Bill by our silence as "parking meters ticking away with the hoods on." What he failed to point out was that whereas parking meters never speak, hear or see, when we are not speaking at any rate we see and hear. In the

debate on this Clause we have seen and heard an attempt at back-door Socialist municipalisation. There might be possibilities in a partnership between the hon. Member for Bristol, South-East and the hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) as municipal garage proprietors. I have no doubt that there would be plenty of volunteers from the benches behind them for the job of petrol pump attendant, only too ready to fill us up with gas now and again.

Mr. Mellish: Laughing gas.

Mr. Lewis: But I find it strange that we should be told that this Bill is the medium by which municipal enterprise should be encouraged, in view of what is happening in Birmingham. There the council is Socialist-controlled, and yet it has recently expressed itself as delighted with the good business deals it has been doing by letting out to private contract various enterprises associated with its new road programme. The council does not run the enterprise itself; it lets it out to private traders. It has secured the rent and thus ensured that it has a profit, without any possibility of a loss.
The trouble is that when municipalities—and sometimes Governments—begin indulging in competitive enterprise they often make losses, for which the rate payers have to pay. Those who listened to our debates on the Finance Bill yesterday were interested in an Amendment proposed by right hon. and hon. Members opposite. It provided for some form of rebate to be given to municipal enterprises on Profits Tax. In other words, that a municipal enterprise should not be treated in the same way as a private enterprise, but that it should be given concessions on Profits Tax.
We on this side of the House are concerned that if we allow municipalities to run the kind of enterprise suggested by the hon. Gentleman they will not only probably run at a loss but, if they make a profit, in some subsequent Finance Bill, if hon. Gentlemen opposite ever become the Government of the day, they will be given concessions against the profits they are making. We believe that it is wrong to provide through the Bill the opportunity for a municipal corporation to trade in any way.
It was suggested that the background of municipal trading was one showing profits. In fact, the reverse is the case. We can see it in London. If one looks at the record of the London County Council in this regard, it had to close its restaurants because they were losing so much money and the council decided that the ratepayer in London could no longer bear the burden.
I agree that the Festival Hall could probably be described as a cultural activity. Nevertheless, it takes money from the public who pay to see the performances that are given there. In 1957–58 there was a loss of £44,000. In 1958–59 there was a loss of £46,000. In 1959–60—

Mr. Speaker: I am not sure that I follow the hon. Member. Does the Festival Hall supply fuel oil or lubricants?

Mr. Lewis: I am sorry, Mr. Speaker. I understand that as well as the entertainment which one gets at the Festival Hall one can get full of lubricants, but not the kind of lubricants that we are discussing.
We believe that the Bill is a good one, but it would not be so good if we allowed to be written into it the opportunity for municipal corporations throughout the country to engage in selling fuel oil and lubricants to the general public.

Mr. Benn: I prefer the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. K. Lewis) when he is out of order. He is more amusing, and, in a curious way, more relevant than when he is in order, but we must not grumble, and, after all, Mr. Speaker is doing his duty in bringing the hon. Gentleman back to fuel and lubricants.
In this argument it seems to us that the doctrinaire view comes from the other side of the House. We are not saying that local authorities should be compelled to sell fuel oil and lubricants, and many of them will not want to do so if they can get a good deal from letting it to somebody else. The hon. Gentleman admitted in his argument that there were many Socialist-controlled local authorities which have entered into very profitable agreements with private enterprise, and we do not object to that. The point is that a local authority ought to be allowed to do it, and we are asking

only for permissive powers. We are not attempting to lay down what should be done by any local authority, and if it becomes a matter of local controversy it will be settled by the ratepayers voting in the council election.
7.45 p.m.
The case is simple. It has been stated, and I only want to sum up the points that have been made. First, the fact that they can sell lubricants may encourage local authorities to build more off-street car parks than they otherwise would. In Committee I gave the example of the London Passenger Transport Board. It was put under this limitation twenty-nine years ago and, as a result of being put under that limitation, there are no off-street car parks near London stations today.
The second thing is that, having got a local authority off-street car park, it is an advantage to have fuel and lubricants sold there, even if private enterprise does not want to go there. There might be some reason why it is not of any interest to a private garage to move and lease facilities at a council off-street car park, and in those circumstances it would be the plain duty of the local authority, having put up an off-street garage to please the Minister, to provide the normal facilities that motorists need.
I think that we are all concerned with the ratepayers. There will be instances where local authorities would like to get private enterprise in and cannot, and where, because they cannot and are not allowed to supply fuel and lubricants themselves, the off-street garages will not be used as fully as they otherwise would be, and there will be a net loss to the ratepayers as a result.

Mr. K. Lewis: The hon. Gentleman must surely agree that a municipal authority would be bound to get private enterprise in if the project it was offering was to be profitable? If it were not profitable, clearly it should not undertake it.

Mr. Benn: The hon. Gentleman really makes my case for me, which is that if a local authority wants to supply fuel and lubricants where they are needed, but where it will not be profitable to supply them it will not get private enterprise interested.

Mr. Lewis: Why should the ratepayer stand the loss? Motorists can go somewhere else.

Mr. Benn: The ratepayer will not stand the loss because he will benefit not only from receipts from the off-street car park but also from the sale, however small, from the municipal pumps, whereas private enterprise will be interested in a set return. I am sorry, but it is a matter of simple economics that the local authority can obviously operate it at a lower return because it will bring in more passengers and it will benefit from the garage.
The third reason, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence) so eloquently said, is that local authorities have tremendous experience of garage work and the servicing of vehicles, and it may be possible to get economy of operation by having an off-street car park built near a garage where fire engines and police cars are serviced.
We then come to the question of whether there ought to be municipal trading. When I heard the arguments against municipal trading I thought of those local authorities, many of them Conservative-controlled, which in holiday resorts provide all kinds of municipal activities to attract tourists—I am thinking of places like Weston-super-Mare and Blackpool. Is there one hon. Gentleman opposite who is not in favour of local authorities, in areas which depend on the tourist trade, spending the ratepayers' money to attract the public? It is in the interests of the ratepayers that they should do so.
Let us consider the seaside authorities, because it is that kind of authority that would be likely to want municipal pumps, and I will tell the House why. It will be a seasonal trade, and seasonal trade may not bring in a sufficient return for private enterprise to be interested in leasing pumps in the car parks, whereas the local authority will find that it benefits because the result will be to attract people to its seaside resort.
When one examines this matter free from passion and with reason uppermost in one's mind, I think you will agree, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that all the argument lies on this side of the House. The hon. Member for Truro (Mr. G. Wilson) said that my hon. Friend the

Member for Dunbartonshire, East was answering his own argument. He has to because we do not get answers to our arguments from the other side of the House. It is the only thing that we can do. We have to put both sides and show where the advantage lies. We are asking for the right of local authorities, whatever their colour, be they Labour, Liberal, Conservative, Municipal Reform, Ratepayers, or whatever guise they appear in on the ballot paper, to exercise their discretion free from the dictation of Whitehall, or indeed Parliament, in a matter as basically simple as this.
We have not the numbers which hon. Gentlemen opposite have to marshal into the Lobby against the Clause as it now stands, but I think we may reasonably claim that the argument lies on our side of the House.

Mr. Hay: This is an interesting argument and, as hon. Members have said, it is somewhat removed from the obscure technicalities which have darkened our paths on so many other Amendments and Clauses. It is a good old House of Commons issue—let us face it—whether local authorities should be given the power to sell petrol and oil at car parks which they provide.
I approach the matter not in a doctrinaire spirit, but from two points of view. I ask myself two questions: first, is it necessary; secondly, is it right. What are we trying to do in this Clause? Our object is to stimulate the provision of off-street car parking and off-street garages. Local authorities are given power to provide off-street car parks and provide those parks in buildings or parts of buildings, and we go on to say that those authorities can let out to someone else those parts of those buildings which are garages or car parks. They are not obliged to act as the car park owner if they do not wish to do so, and they can let it out.
We say that if they decide that the best way of going on is to let out the off-street car parking part of the building to someone else, perhaps to a private company or some other person or body, then they should have the opportunity of making provision in the building for the storage of air and water, for radiators and tyres and so on, and also for the storage of petrol and oil, but we say that they are not themselves to sell petrol and oil.
What we are trying to do is to stimulate off-street car parking. Everyone knows that to run a garage or a car park on its own is not a highly profitable undertaking, at any rate not at the moment. As and when we get parking meter schemes throughout the centres of cities and towns, it will become a highly profitable business. At the moment, we have somehow to prime the pump and make sure that people go into the off-street car parking business.
It will be a far better proposition and far more consonant with our overall objective if we enable local authorities to let out a car park which they have provided in a building, but not enable them to plunge into the garage business itself. Let us face the fact that if we give them the power to sell oil and petrol, everyone knows what will happen in a short time. Within a few years, we will have Private Bills asking, in addition to the power to sell oil and petrol, power to do repairs, and from that it would be only a comparatively short step to selling vehicles and accessories. Let us be frank about it. That is what would happen. We have seen it happen so often before and it is something which is quite unnecessary for the purpose of achieving our objective. Our objective is to obtain off-street car parking and, frankly, we do not care a bit who provides it, so long as it is provided. That is the answer to the question of whether the power is necessary.
The second question is whether it is right. Here we get on to a point of principle which honestly divides both sides of the House. It is the view of hon. Members opposite that it is perfectly legitimate and justifiable for local authorities of any political complexion to have the right to carry on trading activities. That has been their philosophy for a number of years. On the other hand, hon. Members on this side of the House take a rather different view. Our view is that local authorities are primarily administrative bodies which are not intended, and were never intended in the whole of their history, to be bodies which engage in trade.
I realise that, as the years have gone by, certain things have happened and certain modifications have been made to the pure milk of that doctrine, but,

basically, it must still be our standpoint that local authorities are a branch of administration, a branch of government. They are not intended to engage in trade.
In addition to all that, I point out that if one accepts the Amendment and does not admit that local authorities should confine themselves to administration, if one believes that they should be trading bodies, one is driven inevitably to a situation in which although, if they make a profit, that goes to the benefit of the rates, if they make a loss, the ratepayers have to underwrite that loss—and some of those ratepayers who have to underwrite that loss by higher rates are the very people who are in the same trade.
In other words, if a local authority is given power to sell fuel and lubricants at an off-street garage which it provides, if it makes a loss, those who will have to pay the increased rates to meet that loss will include other garage proprietors in the rest of the town who themselves are being completed against by the local authority.

Mr. Charles Pannell: Is the hon. Gentleman's argument very sound? Could he not just as well argue that the childless man is not interested in the education rate? I hope for the sake of brevity that he will throw away his brief, because I could make a much better case against municipal trading than he is making. He is rejecting the Amendment for the wrong reasons.

Mr. Hay: As will be seen, I am not speaking from a brief. I am speaking on a subject to which I have given considerable study for the last few years. I am certain that it is wrong as a matter of principle that local authorities should engage in trade and, if they make a loss, should expect their losses to be paid for by the very ratepayers against whom they are competing.
That is our principle on this Amendment. It is a principle which divides the House as a whole and I hope that if we have to vote on the matter—and we are willing to do so if necessary—it will be realised that we are voting on a matter of principle. However, I hope that such a vote will not in the slightest disturb the harmonious and good relations which have prevailed


between us on all the other aspects of the Bill.

Mr. Benn: The hon. Gentleman began by asking, "Is it necessary?". Having disposed of that, he came to the question whether it was right, so he did not put the principle very high. He must recognise that the principle works both ways. If a private garage makes a profit as the result of getting a lease from a local authority, the ratepayers are providing a profit for the garage just as they may be underwriting a loss by the local authority. If there is profitability in the land, the private garage using it makes a profit which rightly belongs to the ratepayers.

Amendment negatived.

Mr. Hay: I beg to move, in page 20, line 9, at the end to insert:
(8) The provisions of this section shall not affect the provisions of any local Act as to the provision of parking places.
The House will remember that the Clause extends the power of local authorities to provide for off-street car parks and in particular provides for the type of composite development which we have just been discussing. However, it is subject to the consent of the Minister of Transport and also to a five-year time limit. It also extends the powers of local authorities to let car parks and provide for the provision of the apparatus and so on for others to operate.
In certain Local Acts, the City of London, the County Borough of East Ham, Leeds, and the London County Council already have certain powers of what we can call composite development and those powers are exercisable under private Acts without any time limit and without being subject to Ministerial control.
We think that as there are only four of these local authorities, two of them being somewhat special—the City of London and the London County Council—these existing powers under private legislation ought not to be affected by the new provisions which we are including in Clause 12 over the whole range of local authorities. While we think that it is desirable to put some restrictions on the powers to be granted by general legislation to local authorities, we do not think that it would be right to restrict the existing powers which Parliament has

already agreed to confer on certain local authorities. With that explanation, I hope that the House will agree to accept the Amendment.

Amendment agreed to.

8.0 p.m.

Mr. Hay: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
I need hardly tell the House that I have reached this moment with some pleasure but with some sadness as well—pleasure that at last we have managed to get through what at one time seemed a formidable undertaking, and sadness at parting, temporarily at least, from quite an old friend. If I may mention to the House a personal matter, this is the first Bill with which I have had anything to do as a Minister. I have found it most interesting, as well as extremely useful, to have had an opportunity of seeing how legislation is passed from the Government's point of view.
The origin of the Bill, as was said on Second Reading, was the debates that we had at the end of last year when it became apparent that, following the General Election, Parliament as a whole wished to see an attack made upon the traffic problem and, in particular, an attack made upon the problem in London. My right hon. Friend then took the opinion of the House as to whether or not we might introduce for a temporary period, a short period, some special powers which would enable him to take charge of the traffic problem and use experimental methods to try to solve it. That was a view that commended itself to the House. My right hon. Friend then had to approach his colleagues, and he was able to obtain permission to introduce this Bill into what was already a rather heavy legislative programme.
I should like, on behalf of my right hon. Friend, to thank the other Ministers in the Government who have helped in so many ways to bring this Measure forward. Perhaps I might make reference to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, who incorporated in the Bill Clauses 1 and 2, the provisions relating to traffic wardens and the ticket system, and who has throughout given us the utmost help in obtaining the necessary powers that we shall need. I should also like to thank my hon. and learned Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State for


the Home Department for the help that he was able to give us all in Committee.
The Bill as it now stands has been, I think, considerably improved by a number of Amendments made. I do not propose, as is often the custom on Third Reading, to rehearse all those Amendments. The proceedings in Committee and certainly on Report are so fresh in all our minds that we do not need to be reminded of them.
I should like to pay a very sincere tribute to hon. Members opposite for the way in which they approached the Bill. It would have been perfectly easy and quite legitimate Parliamentary political tactics to have been obstructive and difficult, often without appearing to be so. We are all familiar with that technique. But they approached the matter in a thoroughly statesmanlike and public-spirited way and, as a result, we were able to obtain the Committee stage within the time limit that we had originally proposed for ourselves, and with the utmost good will on both sides. I feel that this was largely obtained as a result of the very valuable suggestion made on the first day that the Bill was discussed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede), that we should agree on a voluntary time-table. I think that this may be one of the earliest examples of this being done, but it is certainly a good augury for the future legislation in this House on matters that are not the subject of great dissension by the political parties.
There is no doubt that this traffic problem has no party virtue. It is not strictly a political problem. It is a technical problem which requires for its solution a basis of legislation, and that it what we have been trying to obtain. I apologise to the House because the Bill throughout has been somewhat difficult to discuss and handle. I was astonished at the complexity of the provisions that we were obliged to bring forward to hon. Members. I had in earlier days some experience of the Rent Restriction Acts and I thought them the absolute nadir of complexity, but that was nothing to what I discovered existing in the road traffic law. We were able to obtain the consolidation Bill to act as a guide through the mass of legislation passed in former years, and I think that it has been a great help to us to have that beside us. It certainly helped in the drafting of the

Bill because it meant that reference could be made to the Road Traffic Act, 1960, instead of to a whole number of individual Acts going back many years. Complex as the Bill is at present and as I fear it will be even after it has completed its journey through Parliament, it is nothing to what it could have been if the consolidation legislation had not been passed.
There is, however, a price to be paid for this. The price is that since the Consolidation Act does not come into force until 1st September next and since the Bill relates to the Consolidation Act, inevitably the Bill cannot come into force until 1st September. Perhaps in some ways this may be a blessing in disguise. It is fairly clear that another place will be unable to complete its consideration of the Bill until the end of July, so perhaps the fact that we shall not be able to start legally with our new powers under the Bill until 1st September will not be such a great handicap after all. The Bill itself in its basic outline remains as it was when introduced into the House on Second Reading. Two of the principal provisions are the first two Clauses relating to traffic wardens and the system of standard penalties. The more I see of this traffic problem, particularly in London, the more I am certain that unless and until we are able to get proper enforcement of parking and traffic laws in our cities and towns we shall never be able to make an impression upon the problem.
Within recent weeks we have seen the second Westminster Parking Meter Order enforced. We have seen parking meters now spreading out through out the whole of Mayfair. We have seen as the days have gone by that motorists who were first prepared to observe the rules and park only at meters and unload only at the unloading bays provided are more and more neglecting these rules. Now chaos and confusion is almost as great in that area as it was before the parking meters were introduced. This is a problem of enforcement, and I am absolutely certain that when we get the traffic wardens on the streets and doing their job we shall at least be within sight of clearing away many of the vehicles which cause congestion. I am


certain that the House will welcome the introduction of traffic wardens and will do all that it can, if the need arises, to assist their task in the legislative field in the years to come.
As for the rest of the Bill, it is intended to give my right hon. Friend additional powers to carry out the sort of traffic action which is needed if we are to make any impression on the problem. I have told hon. Members already during the Committee stage discussions that we have set up the London Traffic Management Unit under Dr. Charles-worth, who was formerly with the Road Research Laboratory. The unit is almost at full strength and starting to get to work in preparation for the day when this Bill becomes an Act of Parliament. I hope that we shall be able to make a speedy impression on the traffic problem in London.
The whole object is to take the central area of London and endeavour to deal with the problem there. As I have said before, if we can manage to lick the traffic problem in the central area of London, I do not think we need worry. If we can beat it there we can beat it anywhere in the United Kingdom, because nowhere in other parts of the country is the problem so acute and severe as in the central area of London. That is our purpose. We have a whole armoury of quite formidable powers and the intention of the Bill is to close certain gaps and to provide some additional weapons for the Minister's armoury. We believe that, as it stands, the Bill will give the sort of power we need to carry out this experiment.
In commending the Bill to the House and asking hon. Members to give it a Third Reading and to send it on its way to another place before Whitsun—as we had hoped would happen—I must say this final word. I hope the House will accept that we shall do the best we can to deal with this traffic problem with the aid of the powers which are now to be provided, but if as we proceed with the experiment we find that further powers are needed, which may well be the case—one cannot tell at this stage—I hope that the House will be prepared to give us this help.
My right hon. Friend said during the Committee stage discussions that the

whole difficulty with the traffic problem was that one never knew the answer until something had been tried. When we try some remedy it may well be that we get the answer right the first time. Or it may well be that the remedy prescribed does not achieve the desired effect, and then we have to think again and produce something else.
We believe that the powers given in the Bill, and the way in which we intend to use them, will enable us to carry out the sort of experiment which is needed to solve the traffic problem in Central London. But if we find that in some respects there are gaps or that some of the powers which we have need to be modified or changed, we shall have to come back to the House. I feel sure that if that happens, provided that we can give a convincing account of what has gone wrong, we shall receive from hon. Members the same sympathy and general support which they have so kindly given to us during the preceding stages of the Bill.

8.15 p.m.

Mr. Mellish: The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport may take a lot of personal credit for the success of the Committee stage discussion on the Bill and for the fact that it was so cordially received. We on this side of the House co-operated during the Committee stage discussions, and I should like to put on record that by the way in which he attended to his duties and the courtesy with which he treated hon. Members on this side of the House and tried to give us as much knowledge as he possessed the Joint Parliamentary Secretary earned our appreciation.
It would seem almost as if we propose to spend all our time slapping each other on the back, but I should like to add a word of thanks to the Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department. The hon. and learned Gentleman had a difficult task during the opening stages of the discussions on this Bill when he took over Clauses 1 and 2. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department may be assured that he could not have done the job better than did the Joint Under-Secretary, and that is high praise. Both Clauses proved difficult to deal with, but the Joint Under-Secretary may be satisfied with his performance.
That is not to say that hon. Members on this side of the House consider this a master Bill which will solve a great number of problems. When my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) and I were appointed—I think that is the word—as members of the Opposition to deal with the questions of transport, we found that we had a great deal to learn, and we still have a lot more to learn. One of the difficulties about being in Opposition is that one has to do everything one's self. I am extremely fortunate in having alongside me an absolute genius at finding the right answers without the help of the Civil Service. My hon. Friend knows where to go to find the right answers and, during the Committee stage discussions, he expressed them in a manner which was appreciated. I owe a great debt to my hon. Friend for the way in which he "manoeuvred us" —the way in which he managed hon. Members on the Opposition side of the Committee.
Having said all those nice things, I wish now to express a personal point of view regarding this Bill. Clauses 1 and 2 are the most important parts of the Measure. They introduce something which we have never had in this country before—a country which is conservative with a small "c"—[Laughter.]—in the context in which I am using that word it would be spelt with a small "c". British people do not take easily to change unless they are convinced that it is necessary, and in such matters as this, where there is a possibility that personal liberty will be infringed, it is important that not only during the Committee stage discussions but even now we should express our doubts.
We are to have a new corps of men, a corps of traffic wardens who will be given powers to apply fixed penalties. The Home Secretary has asked us again and again to indicate that this does not mean that offending motorists will have to pay fines without any right to go to court and appeal against the payment of them. But nevertheless, it will remain in the minds of many people that this is a fine they are liable to pay. They start on the basis that they are guilty. It may well also be the impression in the first instance that the people administering these penalties are not fully trained and

may not be qualified to perform their task. Therefore, we have the right to question the provisions contained in Clauses 1 and 2 and express our doubts about them.
Listening to what was said by the Minister of Transport during the Second Reading debate, one might have believed that somewhere, behind some door in some part of Britain, was a vast corps of traffic policemen or wardens waiting to descend on the lanes and streets of our country. The Press made a great deal of the statement which the right hon. Gentleman made and the impression was created that we were to have a brand-new corps of traffic wardens almost immediately. Of course, it is nothing like that at all. It will be a considerable time before we can hope to have the sort of people envisaged by the Minister.
If such men are to be found, as contended during the Second Reading debate and during the Committee stage discussions, why should not we devote our energies to training them as police men? The finest way of controlling traffic is by the use of policemen, and I consider that one mobile policeman is worth ten such wardens as are envisaged in this Bill. If we devoted more of our attention and energy to the recruitment of policemen as such, I consider that the ultimate result would be more satisfactory.
When we get the Regulations which are essential if the provisions contained in this Bill are to be operated, I hope the Minister will recognise and appreciate that some of us will be watching them carefully. We shall not tolerate the formation of a second-rate police force. We shall not permit the imposition on the people of this country of men who, in our view, will be trying to do a policeman's job but who will be an inferior type of person. We shall oppose anything like that and we give notice of our intention now. I believe that our view is shared by many hon. Members opposite. If we are to have a corps of traffic wardens they must be thoroughly capable men, thoroughly trained and have a sense of responsibility right from the time they start their work. It is no use talking glibly about all these people when there just is not such a corps.
I believe that the Minister will wind up this debate, so I will address him on the subject of the fixed penalty. When he replies, I hope that he will rid the policemen of the fear that one of the things that will be lost between the motorist and the police is their co-operation. They fear that what is called the cautionary system will not operate as extensively as it does today.
I tried, but failed, to get reliable figures of the number of cautions that motorists receive in a year from the police, but the present approach of the policeman to the man who is obstructing the street and is unable to avoid it is really excellent. Many men who are doing a legitimate job of delivering goods cannot, for the moment, avoid obstructing the street. The policemen know that, and will tolerate them gently and give them a kindly warning. The reputation of the police amongst motorists, and certainly amongst lorry drivers, has never been higher.
We must not destroy that by introducing some system that may well be used by some wardens and some policemen—I do not say all—which means just sticking a ticket on the motorist's or lorry driver's window and saying, "That's £2, brother. If you don't like it, go to court and argue it out". None of us want that attitude, and the policemen are worried lest the introduction of this system should diminish the cautionary system.
As the Parliamentary Secretary has said, the other Clauses deal, in the main, with London's traffic problem. As we know, the Minister of Transport is now taking powers for the next five years to get things done more speedily in the Metropolis. One of the arguments in favour of the Minister taking these powers, and I support his having them, is that we have at present a Royal Commission considering local government in Greater London. It is fair to say that it will take nearly five years to implement the Commission's Report, when it is issued, and during that time arguments about their relative powers may arise between the Metropolitan boroughs and the London County Council. A Minister having the powers set out in the Bill may be able to do a lot of good there.
There is one assurance that I should like to have repeated on Third Reading. Both the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friend mentioned the London Traffic Management Unit. In Committee, we on this side sought to appoint an advisory committee to help the Minister in the exercise of his new powers. Does he see the Traffic Management Unit as the body with which he will co-operate in the exercise of those powers? If so, it will form a link between the borough councils, is the county council and himself.
I do not think enough has been said in this House about the good work done by local authorities in London and elsewhere for traffic flow and road safety. There has been much criticism about the odd latrine in the middle of the road and the fact that when asked to move it by the Ministry the council concerned argued and squabbled for months. It is true that there are such examples, but we tend to forget the great amount of traffic work that has been done and is still being done by local authorities. Road safety is something that local authorities do better than anyone else if they get inspiration from the Minister.
I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman not to lose the good will existing in London between his Department and the Metropolitan boroughs. That good will has been built up over many years. I have criticised the Ministry in the past, but I must say quite frankly that I know of no Ministry that works harder with, I believe, insufficient staff—technical staff, in particular. One thing that the Minister has to do is to reorganise his own Department and provide it with the personnel and the aid that it needs.
The Ministry has far too many things to attend to—shipping, transport of every kind, road safety, road improvements are far too much. They are certainly more than enough for one Minister to handle, even the present Minister. I do not want to get into trouble with him tonight, because we want to keep things on a nice even keel, but I do not think that even this Minister can be expected alone to take on the enormous powers that the Bill gives him.
I wish the Bill well. We have doubts about it, as every Opposition has a right to have about any Government Bill. We have not opposed its Second Reading,


its Committee stage or its Third Reading, because we want to convey to the Government and to the country that when the Government in power shows us that at least their intentions in regard to traffic matters and road improvements are designed to help our people we are always prepared to help.

8.26 p.m.

Sir Richard Nugent: Before we say farewell to the Bill as it goes on to another place, I should like to congratulate my right hon. Friend and his hon. Friends on their successful handling of this Measure through its various stages. I would also add my word of thanks to hon. Members opposite for making its passage so expeditious and, indeed, felicitous.
We have discussed a good many of the traffic engineering aspects of the Bill, and I myself devoted my own remarks to it. I am quite certain that my right hon. Friend will now have the opportunity he wants to apply traffic engineering methods to London. I believe that those methods can give a safer, smoother traffic flow in this great city, troubled as it now is with traffic difficulties. Both my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary and the hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) have referred to the enforcement function, which is the complement to the traffic engineers' work. However good the traffic engineering schemes are, they cannot succeed unless enforcement is effective. There is a real problem here with which my right hon. Friend, his hon. Friend, and my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will have to cope as these traffic engineering schemes develop.
As the hon. Member for Bermondsey rightly said, the traditional system of enforcement by the police is what is known as token enforcement—as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) well knows. That means that not all offenders are prosecuted but only some. Some are reproved verbally on the spot, some may be cautioned, while others are prosecuted. That is the traditional system, and it is one that is really basic to the friendly relationship that exists between police and public. It is part of the unique quality of the policeman of this country as a figure to be trusted, as opposed to the police in any other country where he is a figure to be feared.
That is something that goes far beyond road traffic law, important though that is. It affects the whole balance of freedom and order in our life, and it is something that we naturally want to retain. Further, as the hon. Member for Bermondsey said, it is something that the police themselves very much value. There is, however, a difficulty. If traffic engineering, which aims at more precise movement of traffic through the streets, with more exact regulations, is to succeed, token enforcement is not good enough. What is needed is 100 per cent. enforcement. The Parliamentary Secretary referred to the picture in Mayfair today, where the parking meters have been introduced. Progressively, as he says, we see more and more breaches of the "No Waiting" regulations.
My hon. Friend hopes that the traffic wardens will be able to deal with this, and I believe that the wardens will make a very big contribution. I do not have the doubts of the hon. Member for Bermondsey about traffic wardens. I believe that it will be possible to recruit a class of men, rather older than the average policeman, but nevertheless fit enough to do day duties far less onerous than the regular policeman's duties, and able to carry out this very responsible work of dealing with the simple nonmoving offences.
That, however, will not get us out of the difficulty I have in mind. What we really want with traffic engineering, whether it is the "No Waiting" regulations, or the speed limits, is 100 per cent. enforcement, but, as I say, the police tradition is one of token enforcement. Weight is given to my feeling on this, because I recently attended a conference in the north of the country of senior police officers. When I talked to them I found that they were very anxious about the new burdens and responsibilities that were to fall on them. They rightly valued their good relationship with the motorists, and realised that they cannot function effectively unless that relationship is preserved. To put it another way, the motorist often feels that he is a persecuted person, sometimes with and sometimes without good reason, but the back-lash of the motorist's sense of persecution naturally falls on the police.
The problem which will confront my right hon. Friends the Minister of Transport and the Home Secretary will obviously be serious. I cannot suggest a simple answer to it. I do not believe that there is one. I believe that the first way to try to meet this problem is to have adequate preparation for any new regulations for traffic schemes which may be introduced, whether it is a one-way street system, a "No Waiting" system, or regulations against loading and unloading. Whatever it may be, the public must be better informed and prepared before it comes into being. I thought that the example we had today with regard to the speed limit was not very good. The Press hand-out after the debate had started in the House was not nearly soon enough. It is most necessary that information should be sent out weeks beforehand so that the public may be informed and may understand the benefits.
Speed limits are not imposed against the interest of the motorist. They are imposed to protect the motorist. They will restrain only the minority. If there is enough preparation, education and propaganda explaining the benefits of the new regulations and why they are worth while in the interest of the public, the motorist and the pedestrian, we have a fair chance of getting co-operation from the motorist and the pedestrian and thereby lightening the load falling on the police of enforcing the regulations.
The presence of the mobile policeman and of the traffic warden on the pavement as a second means of lightening the load of the policeman in enforcement is obviously of great value. The mobile policeman, either on a motor bicycle or in a motor car, undoubtedly has an electrifying effect on everyone else on the road. We all look out for him. In the same way, the traffic warden standing on the pavement undoubtedly will be a valuable restraint to a motorist thinking of leaving his car where he should not. This would mean many more traffic wardens than the 100 or so mentioned in Committee.
These are merely suggestions towards solving this very difficult problem. I know that my right hon. Friend has thought deeply about these matters. I hope that when he replies he will be able to assure the House that he and

the Home Secretary have in mind the problem of how we are to preserve the great and unique tradition of the British policeman and at the same time get 100 per cent. obedience of the traffic regulations which we must have if the schemes my right hon. Friend has in mind are to succeed.
I sincerely hope that the Bill will succeed. I am sure that no one will operate it more ingeniously or with greater energy than my right hon. Friend. It has my best wishes that it will come successfully into operation.

8.37 p.m.

Mr. Bence: I should like to say a few words about the penalties and the ticket system. I should like to recount a regular experience of mine. I drive a car which was registered in the West Country, but I live in Glasgow. When I am driving in Glasgow in my car with a West Country registration number, infringements are treated by the Glasgow police, with their natural courtesy, as ignorance on my part. I am not likely under the present system to be prosecuted in Glasgow, because, as I say, in the belief that I do not know the City, the courtesy of the Glasgow policemen is such that they are a little tolerant.
When I go twice a year to the West Country and ride about in a very large city, if a policeman sees that my car has a local registration number I do not get off so lightly. He thinks that I am a native and should know better, when in fact I do not know anything about the city. When I break a small rule I get into trouble. Under the system in the Bill, I am not likely to be prosecuted in Glasgow, but I am likely to be caught in the West Country.
I am very worried about this. If in another part of the country one is liable to these fixed penalties for an offence which one feels one has not committed, it may be necessary for a person to travel a long way to appear in court. Many motorists could not afford it. Many working people who have motor cars could not afford to lose a day's work to travel 60 or 70 or even 100 miles to appear in court to defend themselves, even though they think that they are innocent. I hope that we will be assured that the ticket system, which I know is practised in other countries, will not


undermine the relationship that exists between the motorist and the vast majority of our policemen.
I was booked once by a policeman. All day I had been collecting clothes for the World Refugee Year. The car was packed with clothes. I parked outside the headquarters of a certain organisation. Unfortunately, my two front wheels were two inches over the steps. A policeman spotted this. He came up to me and asked whether I had my licence. I showed it to him. He saw all the clothes. I was not prosecuted, but if it had been a traffic warden I might have been prosecuted for doing a gratuitous charitable job because my two front wheels were two inches over the steps. That position, to me, is absolutely ridiculous.
The other point I wish to raise is a matter on which I feel most strongly. The Joint Parliamentary-Secretary told us that it was a matter of great principle that a local authority is not allowed to sell or market things, and that it is an administrative body and not a trading organisation. Yet under Clause 14 it can still sell cars that have been abandoned. It can become a scrap merchant.

Mr. Ede: Or a marine store dealer.

Mr. Bence: Yes, perhaps a marine store dealer. Perhaps it can take a horse and cart around the streets—

Mr. William Ross: Provided it can find an abandoned horse and cart.

Mr. Bence: Yes. Perhaps it could find one and go round looking for abandoned cars. Maybe in my own town we shall have the local authority going around collecting old scrap. What is the use of the hon. Gentleman telling us that it is a great Conservative Party principle that local authorities should not be trading organisations? What is proposed here is trading. The marine store dealer goes round for old iron. Now a local authority can go round looking for abandoned old iron in the form of cars. Will it be able to strip these cars? If it finds on a car two good tyres will it be able to sell those tyres independently? Will it be able to take the engine or the gearbox out and sell those? Will it be able to run a second-hand store to which people running old cars can go for spares?
This is also setting up a local authority as a car-breaking concern where motorists can buy all sorts of spares. A young lad I know has an old Austin Seven in which the crankshaft broke. If this Bill had been in force and the local authority had been able to sell abandoned cars, he might have been able to obtain a crankshaft for his Austin Seven. This is trading. A local authority will not collect these cars only to bury them. It will have power to sell them. The Clause does not say that it must sell those cars whole; it can break them up and sell them in parts. The car itself may be scrapped, but there may be some very valuable components still usable. That is quite possible, indeed probable, at the rate at which cars are smashed up on the roads today.
I was amazed to see that local authorities could set up in the scrap dealing business, provided that it was in abandoned cars, but I have no doubt that once they get going and pick up these cars they will soon ask for powers to buy second-hand cars.
I come now to the appointment of traffic wardens. I agree that in Scotland we have very heavy unemployment and it might be possible there to recruit traffic wardens. But where in the name of fortune are we to get traffic wardens in the south of England at a decent remuneration? I understand that there are more vacancies in commerce and industry in this part of the country than there are people to fill them, so where will these wardens come from?

Miss Margaret Herbison: They might migrate from Scotland.

Mr. Bence: Maybe. But if they do, where will we house them when we get them here? I do not know where we are going to get them.
I want this Measure to be a success. I want to see less crowding of roads and streets, but I do not think that this Bill will achieve that. We shall have parking meters, "No Waiting" signs, "Stop" signs, signs to park and signs not to park, Belisha beacons and the confusion of lights at night time. It is amazing, with the great number of lights at night, that many of us do not go across traffic lights. Driving along Argyle Street, Glasgow, is most difficult, there is such a great number of lights, reds and greens


and blues. The more signs there are in busy streets, the more difficult we make it for the motorists and the more confusing.
I am not certain that this system of off-street parking and traffic wardens will be the solution to the problem of crowding. I agree with the Joint Parliamentarly Secretary that probably this is a modest beginning and that we may have to think again. I think that it will not be long before we shall have to think again and provide parking facilities on a very large scale. I hope that those parking facilities will be of such a nature and such a cost that they will stop some of these people who come driving into the cities every day from the suburbs and outlying parts.
I am thinking particularly of the person who drives all alone in his car. He comes out of his house in the morning, somewhere in the Green Belt. I suppose it is for social status reasons, but he steps into his car all by himself, buzzes along to the City to his business, and then parks his car in the City. To me, it seems ridiculous.
I have a friend who lives at Finchley. He has a car, but he always comes by tube to his work in London. He told me that by tube it takes him between 35 and 40 minutes to go from his home to his office, which is off Park Lane. When the tube strike was on he used his car, and it took him 55 minutes to do the journey.
It is nonsense—is it not?—to have all these cars streaming into our cities, Glasgow, Birmingham, London, with only one person in each of them, blocking up the roads, creating all this need for extra parking facilities, and making it more and more difficult for municipal transport systems to function economically. The time has come when we shall have to do something to stop the crowding of our cities with cars with one only person in each of them, the crowding of our cities with cars by people who use them only for social, positional and status reasons or because of the environment from which they come.

8.48 p.m.

Mr. John H. Osborn: This is really a remarkable Bill. My concern is not so much with the legislation itself as with its imple-

mentation now that the Bill is well on its way to becoming law. It is a technical Bill which will come into operation in September of this year. It is a Bill which will affect local authorities, individuals in those local authorities, the police throughout the country and the general public.
I speak on this occasion as the representative of a constituency outside of London and as one who during all the debates on this Bill, in the House and in Standing Committee, has considered it from the point of view of people who live in industrial areas and are concerned with the problems of industrial areas. The local authority of my area has been, as the local authorities of other areas have been, a little anxious about the Bill, wondering how it will affect it. Members of the public, too, have been anxious, wondering how it will affect them.
That is my first reason for wanting to say a few words on Third Reading. My second reason—as my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. K. Lewis) has said—is that in Standing Committee I was one of those back benchers who were like parking meters with hoods on. This is the first opportunity I have had of taking off my hood and of expressing appreciation to the Minister and to the Joint Parliamentary Secretary for providing me with a remarkable education, for this is the first Bill that I have seen pass through the House.
My main concern is with the problem of public relations and of advising the public how the Bill affects them. In spite of the publicity in the Press, many people up and down the country are concerned about this, and I therefore hope that the Minister will touch upon it when he winds up the debate. What do the public want? They want something to facilitate the movement of traffic in our cities. It is a move in the right direction, particularly as far as London is concerned, that we have established the principle of traffic engineering.
The other thing about which the public are concerned, probably due to the congested state of our cities, whether London or provincial, is the problem of parking and the frustration which is caused by it. It is so easy for people to resent the law, and for them to go a stage further and resent the


people who passed the relative legislation.
We have had mention of Clauses 1 and 2. Clause 1 deals with the ticket system, which is new and which affects those concerned with our courts. This is the main concern, which should not be related in the minds of the public to the creation of traffic wardens, which is dealt with in an entirely separate Clause. I hope that the Minister will re-emphasise this, because as I go around the country I still find a certain amount of confusion about it. The creation of traffic wardens is another move in the right direction. The hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence) asked where we would get them from. The A.A. and the R.A.C. have managed to recruit their traffic patrol staffs, and I have heard that another, country, New Zealand, has adopted the traffic control system and has been able to recruit the necessary people.
We discussed this recruitment problem in Standing Committee, and perhaps through retirement from the Services or other forces people will come in. I am sure that younger people who would like to enter this traffic warden service will be very welcome, and I think that there is an encouraging career for people who do not come up to the required standard for the police forces but who would like to enter the traffic warden system. Fears are also expressed whether we are likely to get the right calibre of people. Let us give the system a trial. Everybody will be acting as watchdogs to see that we do get the right calibre of people as traffic wardens, who will certainly relieve the police and our local authorities.
There are two other Clauses which are of vital interest to the public—Clauses 5 and 12. One deals with designation, and the other with the creation of multi-storey car parks. To my mind, this provides both an opportunity and a challenge to the local authorities, and particularly to some of the people in such cities as that with which I am associated—Sheffield. The Minister told us on Second Reading that he is taking power to put the whole business of parking in the hands of the local authorities.
Many people within the local authorities themselves are resentful of the powers of Whitehall. This is the opportunity for them to solve their own

problem and I suggest that it is a challenge to them. Indeed, I think that members of local authorities will collaborate with all the parties concerned in that direction. People do not want to be told where not to park, but where they can park, and traffic wardens will bring them aid in that respect. We have agreed that there is also to be more painting of signs by which the public will be further helped.
My own view is that the Bill will help to achieve these things—movement of traffic by not allowing parking on certain roads, limited parking for short periods of time by bringing parking meters into operation, which will help in our cities, and, finally, something for which everyone is asking, encouragement of off-street parking. I think that the encouragement of off-street parking is the most important of the lot. We must remember that we are moving into a new phase in which the motorist will pay to bring his car into a city, unless the shopkeepers are likely to help him to pay or the local authority does so. One thing is certain. After our debates in the House this year, the taxpayer must not be called upon to pay for that privilege. It devolves upon either the motorists, the local authority or the traders, who would, perhaps, like to attract the motorist into the cities, to pay for the privilege.
There are commercial interests in our cities, as there are in American cities, which would like to encourage motorists to come into the cities. This is very much the case in the United States. When I was there a few years ago I saw that "down-town" stores were empty because of the congestion and inability to park cars. This trend could appear in this country. One small township in America overcame the difficulty by store owners getting together to solve the parking problem. It does not matter who does it, but the fact is that we must pay for having cars in our cities. It may be that commercial interests should contribute by providing their own garages, which is certainly what happens in the case of the new stores which are going up in many provincial cities.
The Bill is a move in the right direction. We shall have an improved flow of traffic. The motorist is getting used to the idea that if he is to get into a city smoothly he must take his car somewhere and tuck it away and that he has


to pay for that. If he is prepared to pay through a parking meter he will not mind paying for parking in a multi-storey garage or a municipal car park. I take this opportunity of supporting the Bill which I am sure will be of great value as a start in the right direction towards solving these problems.

8.58 p.m.

Mr. Ede: I am sorry that the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport is not in his place. I do not complain about it, because he has been very vigilant in his attendance on the House, but I would have liked to have thanked him personally for the very kind references he made to me. But in my defence to my constituents I must say that they are not to assume that because I was thanked by one of the Joint Parliamentary Secretaries to the Home Department for having redrafted the First Schedule of the Betting and Gaming Bill and I was thanked today by the Joint Parliamentary Secretary for having made a suggestion which I have no doubt was in many people's minds but which I managed to get out first, I have become a supporter of the Government. I have no intention of being that.
I warn my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) to be very careful, because they were told that they had approached this matter in a statesmanlike manner. When that is said from the other side of the House, let them beware. Woe unto you when all men, especially Members opposite, speak well of you.
I regard the first two Clauses of the Bill with very considerable misgiving. I join in the criticism which was so ably made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey, who has so many relatives in the police force that if there is anything wrong with that force he can always put us on to it. When my hon. Friend says what he said this afternoon, I know that we are listening to the views of practical members of the force who are confronting a quite new set-up.
It is one of the marvels of this country, when one thinks of the power over men's reputations that we put into a policeman's hands and that over 100 years we have recruited police-

men one day and put them on the streets the next, that very rarely has any great difficulty arisen in these personal relationships.
We all know that there are always unkind people who, when their friends get into trouble with the police, say that if they had not been doing something the police would not have taken any notice of them. To have avoided that kind of thing being said wholesale throughout the country speaks highly of the good sense and good humour of both the police force and the citizen with whom they come in contact.
I recollect that when the Surrey Constabulary celebrated its centenary it put on show one of the early discipline books. On the first page it was recorded how two constables were brought before the chief constable on a disciplinary charge because they had arrested the Deputy-Assistant Q.M.G. at Aldershot for being a deserter. That was four years before the Crimean War broke out. The force did not realise that one never looked for a deserter in the Q.M.G.'s department. One of the two constables was dismissed the force. The other, who, in addition to arresting the D.A.Q.M.G., was alleged to have used obscene language, was ordered to move from one side of the county to the other at his own expense and remain in the force.
That was so isolated an incident as to be worthy of note. We have to be quite certain, now that we train policemen before we put them on the roads, that we adequately train traffic wardens before we put them in charge of such duties as they are to discharge in aid of the police. I welcome especially the fact that they are to be in aid of the police force and that, as far as Answers have to be given for them in this House, they will be given by the Secretary of State and not by the Minister of Transport.
I hope that the relationship between the police force and the traffic wardens will be cordial but that it will be recognised that they act in aid of the police and that the duty of dealing with problems created by breaches of laws and regulations is still a matter for the police and can ultimately be brought before the courts, where the appropriate decision will be made. I view with some misgiving the power to require fixed


penalties. I welcome the fact that if a citizen feels that he has been wrongly accused by a traffic warden he can get his case considered by the court for the area in which the alleged offence was committed.
Some people—I have met them in various phases of my life—prefer, if they can, to pay up rather than attend a court. I hope that if a person who receives a warning from a traffic warden decides to go to court rather than pay the £2, or whatever the sum may be, the court will take notice of it and see that he does not of necessity pay more if he goes to court than if he accepts the indication that he has become liable to pay this sum.
I sometimes hear it said—and I am sure from long experience as a serving justice of the peace that it is quite unjustified—that a person who pleads guilty will get a smaller penalty than a person who pleads not guilty and defends himself but in the end is found guilty by the magistrate. If that became the practice, it would be a great blot on our administration of justice.
The hon. Member for Guildford (Sir R. Nugent) was helpful to us in Committee in bringing to our deliberations the experience he had gained as Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation. The hon. Member said that what we must get is 100 per cent. enforcement. That is the ideal at which we should aim. I am, however, far too conversant with the frailties and subtleties of human nature to believe that we will ever get it. I am certain that until we get a much augmented police force, we shall not get the amount of enforcement with regard to moving vehicles on the road that we ought to expect.
I hope that because of acceptance, for the time being at least, of traffic wardens, although they are dealt with in a part of the Bill which has no time limit attached, the Home Secretary and those associated with him throughout the country in raising police forces will not diminish their efforts in the slightest because of this body which is being created to act in aid of the police. I hope that the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis will not persist in his decision to recruit no women in the first 100 traffic wardens. I am sure that there is

plenty of scope for women in this branch of public service, even if it is only in dealing with women.

Mr. Mellish: With one proviso—that if women act as traffic wardens they will be paid the rate for the job. Otherwise, more women will be employed than men because they can be employed more cheaply.

Mr. Ede: I have spent nearly all my life trying to get the rate for the job for myself and for women, but one thing I still feel aggrieved about is the fact that women police are not paid the same rate for the job as are men, because it is said that they might not be called upon to do the same jobs as men. When I think of a woman making a rugby tackle on a man who is trying to escape, bringing him down and handing him over to a cinema commissionaire while she telephones for the police van to remove the culprit to the proper place, I cannot believe that there are many jobs done by policemen that women cannot do. When they have acted as decoys in trying to rid certain areas of pests that have been molesting the womenfolk of the neighbourhood they have run as great a danger as any man in the force.
I recommended one such woman for the King's Police Medal, and some of the men objected on the ground that no women had previously been given the K.P.M. My retort was that it was perhaps because no one had previously deserved it. There should be no distinction between the sexes in these matters.
The Minister can rest assured that he will have the good will of all hon. Members and of every good citizen if he will pursue the course which the Bill enables him to pursue, within the law. I was very disappointed when, with regard to what happened at Christmas, he said that he had bluffed the people. I ask him to believe that people did not stop to inquire whether he had a statutory right to do the things he proposed; they were anxious to see the appalling casualties cut down. They were willing to support anyone who had a practical suggestion for doing so. If a few people ultimately discovered that he could not bring them to court for some of the things they did, nevertheless he ought to have been gratified by the fact that the overwhelming majority of motorists, as well as ordinary


citizens, thought that he was proceeding on sound lines and were willing to help him with his experiments.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey referred to the Minister as "even this Minister". But I believe that the right hon. Gentleman has not merely the good will of the people but their expectation that he will not be deterred from doing the right thing, within his power, even if it is unprecedented. They expect that his will be a colourful term of office at the Ministry and I can assure him, from the conversations that I have had with many people of all shades of opinion, that the country is anxious that he should take the opportunity afforded to him by the Bill of seeing that road traffic can flow easier and more safely.
I have heard the new phrase, "road traffic engineering". I am not quite sure what it means, but I am sure that if the right hon. Gentleman will carry the later Clauses of the Bill through with the determination of which we know he is capable, explaining well beforehand exactly what he intends to do and why, as was suggested by the hon. Member for Guildford he need have no fear. He will get a tremendous response from motorists and from ordinary citizens, who think that the holocaust on the roads is now so serious that it ought to be brought to an end.
I view the Bill with some misgivings, in connection with certain points that I have indicated, but I hope that the Minister will be able to convince the country that the experiment that he is going to try in London will be so successful as to warrant other parts of the country asking for it. It has at least this to be said for it: London is probably the most difficult place in which to conduct an experiment. That, in itself, is an act of tremendous courage, and I hope it may be rewarded.

9.15 p.m.

Mr. R. Gresham Cooke: As we might expect, the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) with his wisdom has done a little to dispel the bipartisan atmosphere that threatened to be the death knell of party politics if it had continued to prevail. Before saying goodbye to the Bill I should like to add my congratulations to our own Front Bench, and to say that I have enjoyed the pleasantries of the Front Bench opposite.
This is an important Bill. Not only has it introduced punishment without prosecution, traffic wardens, and also the possibility of the disc parking system, but, in my view—and I think the right hon. Member for South Shields might be shocked to hear this—this kind of Bill may be the prelude in England to the establishment in England of traffic courts for settling our traffic disputes in future. That may well be the result.
I do not think that we ought to congratulate ourselves too warmly tonight that we have solved every problem in London. We certainly will not have solved the problem of congestion by the Bill alone. I motored up Berkeley Square the other day, a thing I had not done for some months. It was after the parking meter system came into operation, and I was able to find a niche for my car because the traffic has been made mobile by the parking meter system. There was room to park a car, but the thing that struck me about Berkeley Square was that there were only half the number of cars in that Square that used to be there previously, because the parking meters and marked spaces provide for a smaller number of cars to stand there.
When I looked round to see where the cars had gone, I found that they were parked in mews, inside alleys and inside streets. When the traffic wardens get active, as no doubt they will in the autumn, those cars will be swept away, and I ask myself where they will go.
One asks, where are these multi-storey garages and underground garages that one would expect to find? What has happened to the Westminster City Council's plan for a multi-storey garage in South Audley Street? We will suddenly find that we are short of garage space in the centre of London once these traffic wardens become active. I think, therefore, that we may be forced into the position that we shall have to give local authorities, or private enterprise, a shot in the arm to build a few multi-storey garages in the centre of big towns. We may have demands that the central fund should in some way support these garages, or that we should de-rate them, or something like that. because it is obvious from the figures supplied to me that we cannot expect either private enterprise or local authorities to put up


big parking garages purely out of the funds that they can expect to get from car owners.
I saw a proposal the other day for putting one up in the centre of London. The rent and rates would amount to £70,000 or £80,000 a year, which would mean that the promoter of the enterprise would have to charge the people who wished to park there at the rate of I5s. a day. Obviously motorists will not pay that amount to park their cars, and therefore I think that the Bill will get us into a further problem, which will arise in the winter, about what is to be done with the cars displaced by the parking meters and by the traffic wardens.
My right hon. Friend may have thought of it already, but one of the results of the Bill will be a big demand for underground and overground garages, a demand which somehow we shall have to meet in the future.

9.20 p.m.

Miss Herbison: My right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) has already referred to the matter with which I wish to deal, and I understand from the OFFICIAL REPORT of the Standing Committee that he dealt with the matter in Committee. Those who pressed for the employment of women as traffic wardens had a very dusty answer in Committee when the Joint Under-Secretary said:
I should stress, as I said before, that the Commissioner has decided not to appoint women only at the start. He will keep an open mind on the matter and no doubt will pay regard to what has been said in this Committee."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee D, 12th May, 1960; c. 243.]
One would have expected that attitude in 1860 but not in 1960, particularly since women are doing a first-rate job as policewomen, with duties far more onerous and dangerous than any traffic warden will ever have to face. The differentiation between men and women for jobs as traffic wardens has no justification, and I hope that right from the beginning the Commissioner will take women as well as men into this job.
I am very glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) spoke of the importance of paying the rate for the job, a principle which I completely support. When I was a teacher I always objected to being cheap labour in the teaching profession

and, since I objected on my own behalf, I object on behalf of all women whatever work they do.
What representations have been made to the Home Secretary—perhaps the Minister of Transport will be able to tell us—about the employment of women as traffic wardens? My hon. Friend the Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence) wondered whether we should get enough men for the job. If these jobs were being provided in Scotland tomorrow, we would have men tumbling over themselves for the job, but in the London area there will be great difficulty about getting them. That is not the main reason why I want women to be appointed. I want them to be appointed because I want them to have the same chance in whatever job they do. Even at this late stage I hope that serious consideration will be given to the matter and as much influence as possible brought to bear on the Commissioner to ensure that right from the start women will be considered for these jobs, just as men are.
The hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Gresham Cooke) raised an important subject when he spoke of providing parking places for cars. He said that the cost ought not to be borne by the taxpayer, but he seemed to be content that the cost should fall on the ratepayer. He said that this was an opportunity and a challenge to local authorities. Local authorities already have great challenges, but do not have the money to meet them. If any help is to be given in the provision of parking places, the burden should fall on the taxpayer rather than the ratepayer. If the matter is reconsidered, I hope that that will be taken into account.

9.24 p.m.

Mr. Charles Mapp: I see no justification for garage facilities being provided out of the public purse. However, I am mainly concerned with Clauses 1 and 2.
The Bill is concerned with the interests of motorists, and those interests have to be borne in mind in this and subsequent legislation which the Bill seems to foreshadow. The hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Gresham Cooke) fore saw traffic courts. I have misgivings about offences hitherto dealt with in


magistrates' courts being dealt with administratively. I register my protest against that precedent. I think that it is bad in principle. It represents a division in the judicial functioning of this country that is bad in precedent, affords a privileged position for a section of the community and, in fact, condones to some extent the offences with which we are dealing.
One other point which I do not think has been dealt with is that our courts are open and there is considerable publicity about what happens in them. I cannot find any provision in the Bill for publication of proceedings under this new form of procedure. If justice is to be done, we must take that into account and provide that in these arrangements there shall be publication of what has happened so that the public may be able to see how this secondary form of justice, if I may so call it, is working.
I am equally unhappy about the warden principle. It is a two-tier form of police force, and I do not like it as such. I believe that there is room for much more enforcement and that we should face the essential fact that what is needed is the strengthening of the police force.
The hon. Member for Guildford (Sir R. Nugent) spoke about the need for 100 per cent. enforcement in the future. It is no good looking for something in the sky. We cannot decide by a sort of New Year's resolution to do something next year that we ought to be doing now.
With the exception of Clauses 1 and 2, the provisions contained in this Bill represent a step in the right direction, but it would be unfair to allow the Minister to believe that the creation of a new form of offence for which a penalty is to be imposed in a form to suit administrative machinery and the creation of a two-tier police system commends itself generally to the House. I think both ideas are bad, and I shall watch closely how they operate. The Minister having designated areas where these provisions will operate, I hope the House will be given a full and adequate report on the subject.

9.30 p.m.

Mr. Edwin Wainwright: The introduction of this Bill

has been made necessary because we have allowed traffic congestion to increase to such an extent that eventually the Government realised something had to be done. I am worried because it is proposed to employ another body of people to carry out duties which are normally performed by the police. I hope that the Government will realise that these traffic wardens which it is proposed to create are to be employed as a body supplementary to the police force. If we allow our police to be reduced in number we shall lose whatever benefit may accrue from the Bill. The Minister must realise that, in addition to the employment of properly trained wardens, it is necessary to increase the police establishment.
The bitter feelings which sometimes exist between the police and members of the public are created to a great extent by parking offences. I recall an incident when a car was parked in front of the house of a neighbour of mine. The vehicle was placed right at the end of a cul-de-sac which was about thirty yards long. A policeman interviewed the owner of the vehicle late at night and eventually the owner received a summons. I consider that a typical case where a warning would have been sufficient.
I hope that the traffic wardens will carry out their task efficiently and that where cars may and may not be parked will be clearly indicated. Frequently motorists park their cars in places which they consider suitable, but eventually they realise that they are committing an offence. It is necessary that so far as possible motorists should be prevented from parking their cars on the roads in our cities and towns. It will therefore be necessary to provide multi-storey garages. The Government have refused to consider a proposition that local authorities which may own multi-storey garages should be allowed to sell petrol.
If the Minister remains adamant on that issue, the money needed for the building of these multi-storey garages must be provided by means of Government grant or by means of a very low interest loan. The Government must realise that unless the motorists use those garages there is no point in building them, and if the charges are too high the motorists will not use the facilities


made available to them. Such cities as Birmingham and Leicester wish to build multi-storey garages, and I hope that the Minister will encourage them by making a grant.
Cars must be taken off the road as quickly as possible, so that the roads can be freed. Many of our towns and cities have roads wide enough to take four or five lines of traffic but the width is so reduced by parked cars as often to leave room for not much more than single-line traffic. To provide parking places, ground must be purchased. In some cases, the necessary land is of high value and, again, if the charge for open-air parking is excessive the motorist will not use the space. Therefore, when an authority has to purchase land at a high price for this purpose, the Minister should consider either lending the money at very low interest rates or making a grant.
The Government should reconsider their views about local authorities selling petrol. It is essential that the authorities should have some kind of income to enable them to take the responsibility for building multi-storey garages. I am quite certain that the sale of petrol would make it possible for the charge to the motorist to be such as to make him quite willing to take advantage of the facilities provided. I hope that the Government will reconsider this point, as both sides of the House realise that unless something is done, and done quickly, about this traffic problem, we shall lose more and more money as a result of traffic delay.
It is estimated that at present we are losing money in this way at the rate of £300 million a year. Therefore, not only is it essential that the Government should allow local authorities to sell petrol but they must spend more and more money on the roads. It is no use providing the various things that have been suggested unless our roads are wider and better. The Government should double the present figure of £70 million, because we are spending far less than are many countries on the Continent. If that is done, our desire to create a good traffic system at home can be achieved.

9.40 p.m.

Mr. Benn: I feel that I owe you an apology, Mr. Speaker, because whenever you come to the Chair I seem to be on my feet. I must apologise for speaking

again, but it is definitely the last appearance, unless their Lordships make so many Amendments that we require a week or two to consider them before we rise for the Summer Recess.
This Bill has created a certain core of comradeship between both sides of the House. Indeed, there have been occasions when the disagreements have been between members of the same party rather than across the Floor. The hon. Member for Guildford (Sir R. Nugent), that subversionist of long standing, has been in conflict with his own Front Bench, and I would be a brave man if I thought that my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) approved of all the things I have from time to time said.
It has all been agreeable. I feel that together we have gone through an adult education series of lectures on the problems of urban congestion. I have enjoyed it, and I am grateful to the various hon. Members on both sides of the Committee and of the House who have contributed to our discussions. At the same time, we ought to recognise that this is the beginning and not the end. If the Minister of Transport thinks that he is in orbit, he must remember that he is still on the launching pad and that we do not even know whether the fuel will work or whether the guidance system is as good as he thinks.
This is the beginning of the problem of finding some solution to urban congestion. I will not go through the Bill in any great detail, because all the points have really been covered. The two Home Office Clauses have caused considerable interest and anxiety. I do not share the anxiety of some hon. Members about ticket functions. We must see how they work. There is an almost unanimous view among policemen, which has spread to both sides of the House that nothing must be done to interfere with the happiness or the rôle of the police.
I must confess that when, in my earlier research in preparation for this debate on the Whitsun traffic problem, I came across this figure of only 100 police cars operating in London, as I am assured is the case, I realised what appalling under-policing there is in the field of road police control in the Metropolis. I hope that that figure is wrong—I can


hardly believe it—but it certainly indicates far greater weaknesses in police strength in the field of traffic control than have ever been shown of other parts of the police force being under strength. I would strongly urge the Minister to consult the Home Secretary from time to time to be certain that there are enough policemen on the road.
With regard to the first two Clauses, I feel that we have reached only half a solution. They are the only two permanent Clauses in the Bill. Almost everything else is temporary, but I still do not feel that this is a solution to the problem. The more I think about it, the more I come to the conclusion that we shall be compelled towards traffic courts, not to make it easier for the motorist, but to get expert judgment brought to bear on motoring problems. In time they will be brought in by the Minister or the Home Secretary. On the other hand, after being through the Committee on the Bill, I do not feel that traffic wardens can ever be a substitute for the police when it comes to controlling cars. What I want to see—and I think that this is the general view of the House—is far greater strengthening of the police.
All the other Clauses, which relate entirely to the Ministry of Transport, deal with two things, control and finance. We are today putting a great load on the Minister's shoulders. As I look at him and try to read his mind and think of his rôle in the months head, I cannot make up my mind whether he is Atlas taking the strain of the world or Samson bringing the palace tumbling down on the backs of the heathens, but, whether he is weight carrier or final wrecker, he is responsible.
Again I feel increasingly that this is only halfway to a solution of the problem. The Minister said last December that he must have more power to coordinate the work of local authorities in traffic control. He is given that power in the Bill. In my judgment, that is right, but during the debate today on the problem of traffic at Whitsun he spoke about difficulties of local authorities over a wider field. Speaking, if I may, to the Minister as an outside adviser, the more and more I think of this the more I feel that we will not solve

even the simplest traffic problems unless there is more centralisation of control. The idea that a road has anything specially to do with the local authority through which it passes is a remnant of the horse and buggy age. Transport has nothing to do necessarily with the area through which the road passes. Traffic can only make sense on a national level. Although no one wants bullying, dictatorship or domination to make our roads operate effectively, there must be centralised control.
I feel this even more strongly when I consider the economic aspect of transport. Earlier today I gave a foretaste of what I proposed to mention later, namely, how much we are spending on roads. I plead with right hon. and hon. Members opposite to put entirely from their minds any idea that this is any longer an argument about what the Labour Party did, what the Conservative Party did, or what the Disraeli Government did. I am not concerned with that. I am concerned only to find out whether we as a nation are putting enough money into the roads, and, if not, why not, and, if we are not, where the areas of greatest weakness are.
The Minister is responsible only for the national trunk system. When he discusses figures—I am delighted to see that the figure is over £100 million this year—he is speaking only of his area of responsibility. A great deal of expenditure on the roads still falls on local authorities. Even when the Bill is enacted, it will still fall upon them. Where a weakness is found in road expenditure, it is in areas for which local authorities are responsible. I do not blame them for this. After all, they are dependent on some sort of grant. They are responsible to ratepayers who do not necessarily get a growing increase of wealth every year, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer does. But, whatever the reason, the fact is that the weakness in road expenditure today lies not so much in the local sector but in the national sector.
This is why I got the Library of the House of Commons to draw up a chart of figures for me, some of which I want to confide to the House. If one analyses the figures from 1946 to 1958, which are the only figures available, to try to get


a slant on the matter, some of the results are surprising. Expenditure on roads rose from £60 million in 1946 to £165 million in 1958. That is not merely Government expenditure but local authority expenditure as well. The number of vehicle licences has risen from 3 million to 8 million. The gross national product, or the national income, which is relevant, because we want to know what proportion of our national income is spent on the roads, shows a rise from £8 million to £20 million approximately.
To take the relationship between the three—this is the figure that I tried to give earlier—what percentage of the national income are we spending per million vehicles? Here we come across these remarkable figures. In 1946 we were spending ·22 per cent. of our national income per 1 million vehicles. Today we are spending only ·1 per cent. In those years Government expenditure on roads has risen dramatically. Local expenditure on road maintenance and improvement has fallen far behind the national need.
I will not continue with these figures. I shall put them in an envelope and send them to the Minister, because I think they will help him to diagnose the weakness in our road expenditure. I mention them only to indicate that this country, for economic reasons, will require greater centralisation of road building and planning than it has had in the past. That is a problem which makes me feel that there is a great deal to do in this field.
I pass now to another question: will the Bill do the job that it sets out to do? This is a growing problem and a predictable one. No official figures are published about the number of cars in the next few years, but with the help of the Library of the House and the projection of existing figures, I understand that in 1965 there could be as many as 13 million cars on the road. One reaches that figure through this progressive projection of 8 per cent. annually. The motor car manufacturers, to whom I was referred by the Library, were not in a position to give exact figures.
Any estimate that we make today will be overtaken by events. We know that from past experience. Does the Bill

give the Minister power to tackle this problem? It tries, together with other powers, to go about it in two ways. The first way is by new roads—and we are not concerned tonight with the new road building programme, but with the aspect of road improvements. The second way is by raising the productivity of existing roads. That is what traffic engineering is about. My right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields said that he did not know what traffic engineering was about. It is using one's existing roads in such a way as to get a greater benefit out of them.
This is something which has been neglected in the past. When tackled efficiently—as no doubt it will be under Mr. Charlesworth and others in our cities—it will yield immediate benefit—indeed without great expenditure. Painting the white lines and getting the clearways will begin to make our roads do their job to their capacity, but the productivity of our roads, even at maximum, is still nothing like enough to deal with the oncoming flood of vehicles. I estimate that by traffic engineering methods we could increase the productivity of London roads by 30 per cent. I have no right to make that estimate, but I think it is roughly what one could reasonably hope to do, bearing the bottlenecks in mind. If we spent more on motorways we could perhaps increase it by 50 per cent.
These increases in productivity are not nearly enough, however. Some time ago—I believe it was in December—the Minister told the House that of every 100 persons coming into London 3 came by private car and 97 by public transport. He said that in Los Angeles it was the opposite way round. He added that London could never get within sight of the majority of people coming in by private car. In fact, saturation point has been reached and, even when we have achieved maximum productivity and have all the new roads, we can never cope. I believe the solution of this problem based on the productivity of the roads is doomed to failure.
I turn from that to the other solution to the problem, which is the productivity of the vehicle. If we could get better use of vehicles we might get even more benefit out of existing road space. That is why late the other night, when only the


Joint Parliamentary Secretary was here, I confided to the Committee my statistic for the measurement of urban congestion. I will not go over it all again, except to tell the House the formula, because I have devoted more attention to it and I have one or two more figures.
If we want to measure the productivity of the vehicle we have to take four factors into consideration: how big is the vehicle; how long is it on the road; how many passengers does it carry; and how far does it carry them? These are the four elements in the productivity of a vehicle.
From this we get the statistic I gave, which is the square foot use of road space per passenger mile carried. It sounds rather extravagant, but we in the modern generation are used to such terms as net ton passenger miles and net cubic feet of space occupied. If we apply that figure to different types of vehicle we get a most startling result. I will not give exact measurements, but I estimate that a private limousine with a chauffeur is 300 times as wasteful of road space as a bus and is 200 times as wasteful of road space as a taxi, that is to say, if we clutter up the roads with private cars. I estimate that—and it is remarkable—if we take into consideration the fact that a taxi is on the move all day, carrying people about all day, that although it is smaller, it is almost as productive a vehicle as the bus. We think of the bus as more productive because it is bigger and holds more people, but the surprising thing is that in fact there is not much difference between them.
Therefore, I do not think we are ever going to break through urban congestion till we start to make, not only new roads —we are hoping for them—and not only better productivity of roads, but better productivity of vehicles. I move out now from my market economist's rôle, for I am not an economist, and I say that this, put quite simply, means that public transport in some form or another is the only answer. When I say public transport I do not just mean buses. In fact, I mean any vehicle which is only engaged for its prime purpose. Car hire is public transport and a hired car a public transport vehicle for this purpose.
The question is, can the Minister under this Bill make any contribution to solving the problem of productivity of vehicles? I suspect that he can. My hon. Friend the Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton) is always getting up in this House and saying we must ban private cars from the centre of London. I think he is quite right, but I think that to do it by dictatorship of that kind is quite impossible, and I fully support the Minister in rejecting it. The question is, how is he effectively to stop London from being throttled by private cars under the limited powers in this Bill, which is not really concerned with that at all? I think the answer to that is in the manipulation of the economics of urban motoring. I am sorry to introduce another phrase of that sort, for I very much hate those phrases, though I do not think there is any other way of describing it.
The Minister under this Bill has got power to do two things which will help solve this problem. This power to put up parking meters everywhere, and the power to force people into off-street garages, are very modest powers, but the Bill is changing the whole pattern of costs of a car in a city. One of my hon. Friends talked about the necessity for subsidising car parks. I do not think it is possible to subsidise cars in London and attract them into London by making urban motoring much cheaper than it really is. I am afraid we have to do it quite the other way. We have to try to relate the cost of one's urban motoring to the true cost of urban motoring, and it is not just a question of the cost of roads, of the supply and demand position on the roads.
My estimate of the position is this: with the Bill which will allow the Minister to get parking meters all over London and to put up car parks all over London, will he have enough power to make an impact on the problem? I have come to the conclusion that he will, because I have come to the conclusion that this Bill is ensuring that I, for instance, ought to sell my car.
I put this part of my argument in a personal way, because I do not think I can convince anybody that I am right unless I put it in personal terms. I am a very average motorist. I have a five-year-old car which I bought three years


ago. I am not connected with a business firm, and, therefore, do not have anyone financing my car. I have to pay for the expenses of it myself, though some of them can, of course, be set off against my Parliamentary work. I am a perfectly average motorist, and I use my car for coming to and going from work. I use it in the evenings when going out with my wife, and when taking my children away on holidays, as I shall be doing this weekend.
What are the costs of my using this car today? Licensing, insurance, depreciation come to £80 a year. Repairs, mine being an old car, run between £60 and £80 a year.

It being Ten o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.

Proceedings on the Road Traffic and Roads Improvement Bill exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the Provisions of Standing Order No. 1 (Sittings of the House).—[Mr. Marples.]

Question again proposed, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

Mr. Benn: I am sorry to have gone beyond 10 o'clock, but I think it was inevitable. I hope that the Minister will be pleased with what I am going to say. After all, he must want people to give their own experiences, and I am going to be the answer to his problem.
My present expenditure on my own car is about £220 a year, as near as I can estimate it, but, of course, I am a very lucky man. I do not garage my car; I leave it out all night. If I garaged it, it would cost a lot of money, and although my car is gradually decaying, it is not decaying at the rate which it would cost me to garage it, so I leave it out. I am also a very lucky man because I am a Member of Parliament and do not have to pay to garage the car when I come up here. Supposing the Minister extends his parking meters to Notting Hill Gate, which I know he will, and suppose I was not a Member of Parliament but had to pay off-street car park charge every day I am at work, I estimate that it would cost me not less than £385 a year. Being a sensible man, with a wife and children to consider, I have to consider whether I am getting full value for that £385 a year, and I have come to the conclusion that I am not. I have sent for all the details of the care-hire

services which are available, and I want to carry this a stage further.
What could I do if I sold my car and spent the £385 on hiring vehicles when I need them? The first thing to consider is that the House sits for thirty-three weeks in the year and five days a week. At a cost of £99 I can have a taxi to come here every day, instead of using the underground or driving my own car. I take my children away for a month in the summer, and I can hire a car exactly like my own, except that it would be brand new, for £77, plus £25 for petrol, and would be able to go away for a month and go where I like. That comes to £199, and I still have another £190 left.
Supposing we wanted to go to the Royal Garden Party. I could hire a chauffeur-driven Daimler for £9 a day and go to the garden party in it, where people would see me and say, "He is a bit of a lad", and would see the chauffeur touching his hat every time we were getting in and out. There would be those loudspeakers at the end of the garden party giving the names of the important people who were there. I always thought that a Royal Garden Party was a very high level until I heard the loudspeaker proclaim "The Sanitary Inspector of Chipping Sodbury", and saw a large man get into a large car. I would get into the big Daimler and drive off.
I am going into this business of hiring vehicles because a man can do this for far less expense than he would have by owning a car of his own. I should still have £150 left either to save or spend on having taxis everywhere I go.
This is really the product of the power which lies in the Minister's hands as a result of this Bill. I can only tell the Minister that this Bill may give him, if he uses it creatively, the power to tackle the problem, but it means the disappearance—perhaps not the disappearance, but the strict limitation—of the private motorist in all big cities. If I were head of London Transport, I should take this as the most exciting challenge that ever faced me. People must not think of public transport only in terms of buses.
Why do people come in by car instead of by bus? Not because it is cheaper; it is much more expensive. It is because the car is a personal thing which takes one exactly where one wants to be, and people want a higher level and a better


quality of transport. If I were the Chairman of the London Transport Executive, I would buy 500 Mini-Minors or Austin Sevens, paint them red, and start a London Transport taxi service at cut rates, on standard routes and at prices which people could afford to pay, because they would be getting a better form of transport than they were accustomed to.
The hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Gresham Cooke) raised another question which is closely related to this—how to tie this up with rail travel.
I fully agree with the hon. Member that we must have car-hire services, taxi services, and garage services at railway stations because, if we want people to use the public services in London, we must provide them with the points of connection which will enable them to come in by train and go on by taxi or, if they live in London, drive to the station and go out by train. This undoubtedly opens a new field if one thinks of it in terms of productivity of vehicles.
I am sorry to have put forward all this at a late stage in the Bill but I think that this is a most interesting subject and I am grateful for having been given this opportunity to think about it. I am grateful also to the Minister for all that I have learned from him. But this is the beginning and not the end of the problem. In the Bill we are giving the Minister great powers, though I think not enough. He will be coming back for more and I can give him the absolute assurance that if he wants powers he will always find the Opposition ready and anxious to help him to do the job.
The right hon. Gentleman will find in future that our criticism of him, as it has been today, will be only if we think that he is not doing enough and only if we think that he is not tackling the job with vigour and imagination. The right hon. Gentleman has in some respects, from the point of view of the comfort and pleasure of his fellow-citizens, the biggest job in the Government, and on Third Reading of this Bill we wish him well in that task.

10.7 p.m.

Mr. Marples: We are all greatly indebted to the hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) for his unfailing

good humour and courtesy at all stages of the passage of the Bill and for what I called in Committee upstairs his unremitting assiduity in research. The only thing that disappointed me about that was that when I looked at the first HANSARD proof of my speech which I had to correct, I found that HANSARD had spelled it "aciduity".
The hon. Member has given me plenty of advice free of charge. I have listened to it all and I shall analyse it very carefully later, as I have analysed his speech on the Finance Bill. I hope that he will obtain a good price for his car, and I hope that he passes his advanced motoring test before he disposes of it in case he has to drive a hire-car, but if the hon. Member has any doubt, why does he not buy a bicycle? Running that will not cost him anything.
I agree with the hon. Member when he says that the Bill is only a start. There is not the slightest shadow of doubt that this is only the beginning in our efforts to get to grips with this traffic problem. Not for a moment do I underestimate the magnitude of the task, but merely because it is difficult there is no reason for shrinking from it. Somebody must try to solve it. There will be many mistakes. I cannot help that, but I shall try my best to correct them.
The passage of the Bill has shown one thing to me. It is that an agreement freely arrived at between Government and Opposition on a voluntary timetable produces a far better debate from the point of view of both sides of the House at all stages of the Bill. There is no doubt at all about that. It has been quite an eye-opener to me to find what a small amount of time we have wasted on the Bill compared with what happens with an ordinary Bill when people start filibustering and making senseless speeches. I am grateful to the Opposition for this.
The hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) said that the Government had obtained the Bill fairly quickly, and I think that we have. This is an object lesson to us. We had a debate on 10th December, when we had the Christmas experiment of the Pink Zone, and I must say to the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) that there was a full legal basis for the Pink Zone, as he would have appreciated if he had done


me the honour of reading in full one of those speeches of mine of which people quote only a couple of sentences. I said that one of the weaknesses of the Pink Zone was the impossibility of the police enforcing it, because the motorist came back, chanced his arm, and kept whittling the zone away. Once the motorist found that it could not be enforced, we had to rely on his good nature. Quite a number of people, however, took advantage of the situation.
We had that debate in December. Instructions were given to Parliamentary counsel in January, the Bill was presented at the end of March and now, on 1st June, we have reached Report and Third Reading. It does great credit to a democracy that that can happen. Few countries would pass a Bill of this magnitude in the normal manner instead of an enabling Bill to give the Minister a diktat. I agree with the hon. Member for Bermondsey that the country does not want dictatorship of that sort. It wants the co-operation that it has always had betwen central and local government.
I should like to deal with one or two of the points that were made on Clauses 1 and 2. These are Clauses sponsored by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, to whom I am grateful. I am also grateful to my hon. and learned Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, who gave such yeoman service upstairs in Committee, to my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, who dealt effectively with the single Scottish Amendment from the other side, and to my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary from my own Department, whose first Bill this is. I am sure that he found it much easier than my first Bill, which was the Rent Bill, when we had a guillotine and rows until the early hours night after night. I am grateful for my hon. Friend's patience and skill.
There seems to be a conflict of advice concerning traffic wardens and the ticket system. The hon. Member for Bermondsey wants the policeman to warn extensively, as he does now. My hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Sir R. Nugent) wants 100 per cent. enforcement. I cannot agree with both of them. What I can say, however, is that in enforcement a citizen should have the right to go to court and the prosecution

has the duty of proving its case. That is fundamental to the ticket system. It is no good people saying that there will be automatic fines. There will not. Anybody can go to court and defend himself. That is how it should be.
Another question was, why not train more police? Even if we could get more police and train them, I still think that it would be advisable to have the traffic wardens and give them a trial, because the police would be better employed in catching criminals than chasing the motorist if the traffic wardens can do the job well.
I did not know that the hon. Member for Bermondsey had so many policemen in his family. Had I known, I should have been much more careful in dealing with him. When I was at the Post Office, one of the men left and joined the police force. When we had the courtesy campaign, he wrote to me and said that the pay and conditions in the police force, about which we have heard tonight, were not as good as in the Post Office, but that what he liked best of all about the job was that the customer was always wrong. I forget the signature. It might have been "Mellish", but I do not know.
I agree with the hon. Member in saying that we will not tolerate a second-rate police force. Neither would I. It will not, however, be a police force, but a corps of auxiliaries with limited power. They will not have the powers which an ordinary constable possesses, but they will come under the jurisdiction of the police force.
I agree that the establishment of fixed penalties should not interfere with the warning practice of the police. We must, however, remember that the use of the ticket system is also discretionary. A warden is not bound to serve a ticket on the driver of a car that is parked in the wrong place, but only in cases where the offence is clearly seen. For example, the yellow line to indicate an intersection is intended to prevent cars standing near an intersection because a car in such a position causes more damage than a car which is parked 200 yards away. If a man leaves his car at an intersection and obstructs the traffic, it is right and proper that he should get a ticket. He would


deserve one. I hope that the system will be used in that way.
Suppose, for example, that when the plan gets into operation later this year, we designate several roads as throughways to the centre of London from the suburbs so that traffic can come in in the early morning and go out in the evening rush hour. We might make a rule that there is to be no parking on, say, the Edgware Road or Cromwell Road during those hours. There is no point in having such an order unless it is enforced to the maximum, because one car could wreck the whole flow. Such a car should be towed away and the man must pay to get it back again and he should be issued with a ticket.
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford and the right hon. Member for South Shields that this experiment in London will fail unless we take the public with us and explain what we are doing and it is seen that it is for the benefit of the majority of motorists. Once the people recognise this, they will accept enforcement.
I am sorry that our intentions concerning the 50 m.p.h. limit were not presented earlier, but the House had the Order some time ago and we had great difficulty in getting the scheme out for Whitsun. In the case of the London traffic, however, we shall have much more time.
My next point concerns the acceptance of tickets and the number of people who will go to court. I have had more figures, although not as many as the hon. Member for Bristol, South-East, which show that 70 par cent. of excess charges demanded on the parking meters, which are run by local authority attendants, are paid by return or within a few days, because the offenders know that they have done wrong. Twenty per cent. have paid after a letter has been sent and in about 10 per cent. of the cases, for one reason or another, possibly because the case is not one in which an excess fee should be charged, no action is taken. These are the figures for north-west Mayfair. I expect that there will be similar results when the new arrangement begins, but I hope that in the early stages—I shall pass the views of the House to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary when next I see him

—the police will treat it cautiously. It is an experiment. We do not want it to fail. It is important that it should get off on the right foot.
The hon. Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) hoped that the Chief Commissioner would use women traffic wardens. There is power in the Bill to employ women, but the Chief Commissioner does not want to employ them at first because this is an experimental scheme and he wants to establish a drill with men.

Miss Herbison: Does the right hon. Gentleman think that that is right? It is a paltry reason. Why should he want to establish a drill with men? If he wants to establish a drill why not do so with both men and women? That is no reason at all; it is only prejudice.

Mr. Marples: In this harmonious Bill I must not get into an argument with an hon. Member of the opposite sex, because I know that I should come off worse. I would merely say that it is the Chief Commissioner's view that this is a first experiment. We can only hope that it will be successful.
The Government's policy is that off-street parking must be at an economic price. I hold different views from my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Mr. Gresham Cooke) on this matter. I have worked out statistics relating to what it costs a person to stay in an hotel in the centre of London, or to occupy office space there. Averaged out in Mayfair, it means that the motorist who occupies 70 sq. ft. of space will have to pay pro rata—and I think that he should.
I turn now to the hon. Member for Dearne Valley (Mr. Wainwright). I forgot his constituency but not his majority. I remembered that he had a majority of 28,000. I would tell him that the Government have no intention of giving loans to local authorities at low interest rates in order to subsidise off-street parking. More will have to be paid for off-street parking in the centre of London than in a little village or in the suburbs. The figure will naturally fluctuate, according to the place.
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. J. H. Osborn) that we must get good quality people for traffic wardens. That point was also raised by the hon. Member for


Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence). We believe that it will be possible to get them, probably from ex-police officers and retired Service men, many of whom leave the Services at the age of 45 and are sometimes very difficult to place in jobs.

Miss Herbison: And Service women, also.

Mr. Marples: I quite agree. I am sure that they would work very well. I cannot impose my views, or even mention them as freely as hon. Members can. When I say anything it commits the Government and my colleagues. Everybody knows what a cautious nature I have. I must be careful what I say. But once, when I was making a private speech, in order to try to provide a little humour I suggested that if relations were wrong between the police and the public the introduction of women traffic wardens might have a great advantage. They could be given uniforms designed by Norman Hartnell or Christian Dior and have a hair-do once a week. That might do a great deal to promote good relations, although there would be a high wastage rate among traffic wardens. In the Post Office the wastage rate is called the marriage rate, for some reason. I do not know why marriage should be considered wastage. It is generally productive of all sorts of things, but not wastage.
To the hon. Member for Bristol, South-East I would say that we have started on our traffic problem late, but now that I have been in this office for some months I am not certain that that will ultimately prove to be a disadvantage, because I think that we shall learn from the mistakes made by others, not only in regard to the technique of road building but in deciding what we want the roads to do, where they should go, and how they should be deployed.
In Los Angeles the authorities are bitterly worried, although they have the finest road system in the world—a four-level fly-over which takes up 80 acres of ground in the centre of Los Angeles. We cannot afford 80 acres of ground in the centre of London. If we were to tackle our problem in the same way as Los Angeles has tackled its problem, by relying purely on roads, we should have to extend London as far north as Leeds

and as far south as Dieppe, in France. I am becoming more and more convinced that merely to build roads in a senseless fashion will not solve the problem; it will be solved only when we relate the building of roads and the activities of the city to the traffic.
That is why we have made a magnificent catch for our long-term study group, which is going into the problem in order to see how we should build cities and what we should expect from them. One of the first things to decide is how we shall live in our cities. It is a fascinating problem, and if I could talk about it in private with the hon. Member for Bristol, South-East I should be delighted to give him far more information than I can give at this Dispatch Box.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hallam said that if shops did not help in off-street car parking they were likely to lose business, and I agree with him.
At Stevenage New Town, which has a pedestrian precinct and a service area, pedestrians are segregated. One can leave one's car in a big car park, and there is a wonderful shopping centre there. People from all round Stevenage come to shop at Stevenage because they can leave their cars in the car park and their wives can walk freely and without any danger of being knocked down while they are shopping. The curious thing is that in many cases people from the areas around new towns go into the new towns to do their shopping. All these experiments have to be studied, but I assure the House that in this island with 50 million people on it, and the shortage of space, it will be impossible to adopt some of the American customs.
There are one or two more points which I should like to mention. Some of these Clauses will be very useful. Clause 13 deals with the removal and storing of vehicles. I assure the hon. Gentleman with the address in southeast London and when the Bill becomes law on 1st September we shall take effective action straight away in that quarter
Clause 14, which deals with abandoned vehicles, will be very useful.
Then I can sell some distributors to the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire.


East, and I sorry that he got into difficulties in the West Country. He got an index number from the West Country and when he went there the police did not treat him very well.

Mr. Bence: I never said that.

Mr. Marples: The hon. Member was treated a little harshly, and he asked what he could do. He might write a note saying, "I am a Scot, forgive me". It has been suggested that he should get a number from the Outer Hebrides and put a "flag of convenience" on his car.
Clause 17 gives default powers to the Minister, and I repeat what I said in Committee upstairs, that I hope the Clause will never be used. That is my fervent hope. I am grateful to the House for giving me that Clause without a Division, and to the local authorities for agreeing to it. It shows the spirit of good will that we have had in this matter, and which must continue in future. If the Clause is used I shall be a very disappointed man, because one of the things this country does not want, and will never tolerate, is a dictator. It may be that in this respect we have to move fast in traffic. That is why we have only five years for some of these measures.
The hour is late, but I say to the right hon. Member for South Shields that I appreciate his speech. It was a very charming and very fair speech from a man who has had many years of distinguished service in this House. I assure him that I appreciated his speech and in my present job I also appreciate the good will that I get from the public generally. I have been fortified and heartened by letters that have come to me, because they have all been written by people interested in the problem who have gone to a great deal of trouble in drawing maps and putting forward suggestions, and hardly any of the letters has been of an abusive character.
It is words such as the right hon. Member for South Shields used that are a great source of strength to a young

Minister like myself, and I appreciate them very much. I know that this is a difficult job. I do not under-estimate it. We are at the start of a great problem. There is an avalanche of cars, and cars are powerful instruments. Like all powerful instruments, they can be used either for good or for evil. The indiscriminate use of a motor car is evil, but the controlled use of a motor car can bring inestimable benefit to almost everyone. It is a tough and rough job but I am grateful to the House for giving me the Bill and for being so kind and generous to me personally, and I am fortified by the good wishes that I have received.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

Orders of the Day — IMPORT DUTIES (CHEMICALS)

Import Duties (Temporary Exemptions) (No. 5) Order, 1960 (S.I., 1960, No. 829), dated 10th May, 1960 [copy laid before the House, 13th May], approved.—[Mr. Erroll.]

Orders of the Day — SUNDAY CINEMATOGRAPH ENTERTAINMENTS

Order made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, extending Section 1 of the Sunday Entertainments Act, 1932, to the Borough of South Molton [copy laid before the House, 23rd May], approved.—[Mr. Renton.]

Order made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, extending Section 1 of the Sunday Entertainments Act, 1932, to the City of Truro [copy laid before the House, 23rd May], approved.—[Mr. Renton.]

Order made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, extending Section 1 of the Sunday Entertainments Act, 1932, to the Urban District of Holmfirth [copy laid before the House, 23rd May], approved.—[Mr. Renton.]

Orders of the Day — BOVINE TUBERCULOSIS (COMPENSATION PAYMENTS)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Finlay.]

10.32 p.m.

Mr. Timothy Kitson: I am pleased to have this opportunity to raise the subject of compensation for T.B. reactors, and as I realise that other hon. Members will wish to take part, I shall be as brief as I can.
I raise the matter because I am certain that the present rates of compensation are totally inadequate under present conditions. The Tuberculous Compensation Order of 1950 laid down the rate as an amount equal to an animal's market value but said that the compensation should not exceed £100. That was altered by an Amendment Order in 1959 to three-quarters of the infected animal's market value but, again, the amount was not to exceed £100.
In 1950, it was possible for a farmer to move his infected cattle off his farm and keep his breeding lines, but the situation has now changed, and any infected animal is slaughtered. In some cases this means that a man, after years of having a herd free from T.B. reactors, may suddenly have a serious breakdown in the herd and not only faces a heavy financial loss but the loss of years of hard work spent in building up a first-class herd. It is proposed that in October of this year the whole country shall be clear.
I have had two very serious breakdowns in my division in the last few weeks, and I wish to explain to the House what has happened in both cases. The first is the case of Mr. Norman Seymour, of Stokesley. He has a pedigree herd of Friesian cattle, which had been clear of reactors since 1950. On 27th October last he had a test, and 38 cattle reacted. Their value was £5,658. His compensation was £3,416—a loss on valuation of £2,242. This was a terrible blow. Mr. Seymour is not a large farmer, and he lost most of his foundation stock. On top of the £2,242, he had, of course, consequential losses, as many of the cattle were producing valuable winter milk.
He had another test in February of this year, and ten cattle reacted. This time the animals infected included a bull that he had purchased six months before. It was valued at £2,000, and the compensation on it was £100. On this occasion, the valuation of his ten animals was £4,050, and the compensation was £905—a net loss of £3,145. Mr. Seymour was allowed to take semen from the bull before it was slaughtered, but it is not known what the life of this particular stored semen is, and it may be of no use at all. He did this to try to cut some of his losses. Indeed, in a period of four months he lost cattle valued at £9,608 and received compensation amounting to only £4,321, a net loss of £5,387 plus consequential trading losses.
I am sure hon. Members will agree that to clear the country of bovine T.B. will be welcome and will benefit both the consumer and the producer of milk and beef. But these losses are too heavy to expect any one farmer to carry. I must reiterate that the farmer to whom I have referred not only lost more than £5,000 but his breeding lines and foundation stock, and there were also the consequential trading losses.
It might be argued that that he should have covered himself with insurance, but this would not have been possible on his October test. He has now a policy which covers him for animals up to a value of £200, with special terms for animals up to £500. I cannot accept that it would be right and proper to ask the farming community to carry these additional insurance costs. I agree that insurance against consequential loss is one thing, but to insure against the loss of animals slaughtered by the Ministry is a completely different matter. I shudder to think of the sort of precedent which might be established—with foot-and-mouth disease, swine fever and fowl pest.
The second case to which I wish briefly to refer shows that the Ministry tests are not 100 per cent. accurate. Mr. Hutchinson, of Scorton, also in the Richmond Division, has written to me saying that since last November he has had cattle slaughtered which were valued at £3,332. His compensation was £1,479.


a net loss of £1,853, again plus consequential trading losses. Mr. Hutchinson is a young man trying to get on building up his herd. His herd had been free of T.B. since June, 1954, and such a serious setback is very hard for him. One cow had passed four tests in thirteen months, being completely clear. When the animal was sent to the Fatstock Marketing Corporation for slaughter the carcase was rejected as being full of T.B. The report on the carcase of the cow from the meat inspection of the Fatstock Marketing Corporation meat inspector stated that the infection was found to be evident in the nodes, the substances of the lungs, liver, spleen, and kidney, while evidence was found in the prescapular precural and popliteal and supramammary lymph nodes.
Yesterday I was in touch with the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons in London, which says that this infection all over the animal's body shows that it must have been infected at the time of the last test. Recently a case occurred in Shropshire when 49 cattle were slaughtered. There the loss was £4,900 plus consequential trading losses. There was a case at Chester where a cow which had passed a test ten days previously, when slaughtered, was found to be full of T.B. There were 30 reactors and the farmer suffered a considerable financial loss. Only on Monday there was an incident at Wrexham involving 14 pedigree Fresian reactors in a herd which had been clear for many years. A week previous to that 15 Fresians reacted at Carmarthenshire.
I am sure my hon. Friend will agree that that even when we get the country clear this autumn we must still expect to get occasional outbreaks, as we still get occasional outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease. The House will also agree that the present position and the rates of compensation are totally inadequate and we should abolish the £100 maximum. I should like to see the full compensation paid, but if that is not possible it is wrong to consider fixing a maximum price. At least a percentage of the total value of the animal should be paid. I beg my hon. Friend to take some immediate steps to alter the present unsatisfactory position.
Finally, I wish to say that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary has been extremely helpful in this matter, and I am sure that he is very conscious of the loss suffered by Mr. Seymour and others. My hon. Friend was kind enough to meet a deputation from the N.F.U. along with Mr. Seymour and myself to discuss the position. It is now some months since we met my hon. Friend, and I understand that the N.F.U. is going to have further discussions with him. I only hope that those discussions will take place very soon because as each week passes there is the possibility of further outbreaks and further substantial losses. I should hate to think that by delaying the matter great hardship might be inflicted on some poor unsuspecting farmer who for many years has had his herd free from tuberculosis. When my hon. Friend replies to the debate I hope that he will be able to give us some good news for the farmers.

10.41 p.m.

Mr. Clive Bossom: I will not delay the House very long because I feel that my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond. Yorks (Mr. Kitson) has put forward a very strong case for higher compensation. However, I want to support the plea which he has made.
I also have had similar cases in my division, and on 2nd January I took up with my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary a case concerning a leading breeder of pedigree cattle in north Herefordshire who had the misfortune to buy a reactor, the first to be had in his herd after twenty-two years. Under the present arrangements this breeder was only able to claim the maximum amount of £100 although he had paid 260 guineas for this Hereford female in calf. The breeder bought the animal from a herd attested by the Ministry of Agriculture at a very large reduction sale of 90 to 100 animals.
During the past six months, whilst I have been looking after the interests of the Ludlow division, I have received appeals from Cleobury Mortimer and Ludlow farmers' organisations concerning this inadequate compensation. They have also pressed that the present programme of yearly tuberculin tests should be continued. They have stressed that very much.
I base my plea to my hon. Friend on the fact that the limit of £100 was fixed as far hack as 1st January, 1951. Since that date the value of most pedigree cattle has risen considerably. Wales and Scotland are now fully attested areas, and England nearly so. Since 1st March, 1960, there has been no area where one could sell a reactor. It had to be slaughtered. Therefore, I think my hon. Friend will agree that the amount of compensation to be paid from now on should get less and less.
I fully recognise the difficulties facing my hon. Friend, but to be just and fair I hope that his right hon. Friend will see his way to raising the compensation figure by abolishing the unjust ceiling of £100 whilst maintaining the present figure of 75 per cent. of the market value of the animal.

10.44 p.m.

Mr. A. Bourne-Arton: I hope that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will take particular note of the disturbing reports which my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Kitson) has given of the invasion of my town of Darlington, with its magnificent cattle market, by this rotten cow for which I cannot blame the constituent of my hon. Friend because it was an attested cow that had just passed a test.
I had always understood that the purpose of the test was to detect whether a cow was liable to get the disease, that a cow which had passed the test was supposed at the time of the test to be immune from getting the tubercle. What sort of an attestation scheme is it which is so unreliable that it cannot even detect an animal that is rotten with the disease? I ask my hon. Friend to have a very careful look indeed at this test.
While I fully support the plea made by my hon. Friends that the basis of compensation in this scheme is out of date, no scheme can surely command public confidence if it is based on a test that is as unreliable as this one.

10.45 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. J. B. Godber): I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this important matter, but in order to put the points he made into perspective

I should like to give a little of the background to this problem before I deal with particular matters.
A quarter of a century ago, bovine tuberculosis was rife in this country. It attracted a great deal of attention from the public health angle, and rightly so, because at that time it was estimated that this cattle disease was responsible for more than 2,500 deaths annually among the human population and for a still greater amount of serious illness. Children were perhaps the greatest sufferers by reason of infected milk.
Such a situation could not be allowed to go on, and in 1933 the Government of the day introduced a plan providing for the payment of bonuses to farmers who joined voluntarily what was called the Attested Herds Scheme and abided by its rules. The object of the scheme was, of course, to establish and maintain herds free of bovine tuberculosis.
By 1950, sufficient progress has been made to justify the introduction of a comprehensive programme for the compulsory eradication of this disease. It was a tremendous undertaking, but, thanks to the complete co-operation of the industry at all stages, we are today on the threshold of attainment. Within a few months we expect that throughout the whole of Great Britain bovine tuberculosis will have been virtually eradicated as a national disease.
There may still be pockets of infection cropping up here and there for some time afterwards, but that is all we expect to find. As evidence of what we have done, it is worth saying that slaughterings of cattle affected with the disease in clinical form have fallen from nearly 24,000 in 1936 to 119 in 1959. This is a magnificent achievement, and it is clear proof that the Government's general policy is right.
This success has not been achieved without the expenditure of a great deal of public money. Disregarding indirect costs, such as labour, overheads and so on, we calculate that all told the Exchequer will have contributed something over £120 million, of which about £113 million will have gone to farmers by way of bonuses. I ask the House to keep this figure in mind.
Having deliberately set out to get rid of this disease—and this includes all of


us, farmers and Government alike—we have created a situation in which an animal which reacts to the tuberculin test has little or no value on the open market, apart from what it will fetch as carcase meat. This is as true of a bull that was bought at a high price as it is of any dairy cow. If there should be any doubt on this score, I ask this simple question: would any responsible farmer think of buying a bull which he knew had reacted positively to the tuberculin test?
Unfortunately, on occasion, breakdowns do occur, and this can, of course, happen in valuable pedigree herds just as much as in ordinary commercial herds. It is not, of course, a frequent feature, but is it, none the less, serious for the farmer affected. I am afraid that there is no simple explanation for this. One of the problems is that very occasionally an animal which is quite heavily infected with tuberculosis will show no positive reaction to the tuberculin test.
This in no way invalidates the general level of efficiency of the test, as the figures I have just quoted will show, but it is frankly one of the difficulties that veterinary science has not yet solved. My hon. Friend has mentioned the details of one particular case in his constituency, where an animal had passed the test but was subsequently shown to be suffering very considerably from tuberculosis. Speaking generally, these rare cases of infected animals that do not respond are usually accompanied by positive reactors in the same herd. They are picked up in consequence. Certainly—and I stress this to the House—we must not allow these exceptional cases to throw doubt on the general validity of the test, which has proved itself extremely reliable, and without which we could not have achieved the impressive results to which I have referred. I impress that upon the House, because while I recognise the feelings about this particular case, I think it would be wrong for people to get the impression that these tests in the main are not absolutely successful.
At an earlier stage owners of highly valued reactor cattle would have been able to dispose of them in the ordinary way of business outside attested and eradication areas. We have now gone so far along the road of eradication that this

cannot be done any longer. The entire country is either fully attested or in the eradication stage. In short, we have passed the point of no return. We must go on in the direction which we are convinced—I am sure this will be universally agreed—is the right one.
The question remains, what is fair compensation nowadays for a reactor, pedigree or not? The rule is that the Government pay compensation for reactors on a basis which in present-day circumstances, I am sure the House will agree, is realistic. Such animals attract three-quarters of the full market value of a comparable fully attested animal, subject, however, to a maximum of £100. If we receive more for the carcase than we have paid the farmer—as occasionally we do—then the extra amount is passed on to him. More often than not we get less than we paid by way of compensation. We also allow farmers to have reactors slaughtered on their own account if they think they can do better for themselves in that way.
What this amounts to in practice is that the Government provide a measure of free insurance for owners of most cattle. I do not think it is right to expect us to go beyond this, because if farmers have animals of exceptional value, such as those mentioned by my hon. Friend, it is quite open to them now to take out commercial insurance to cover excess value against risk of their proving reactors, just as they can in relation to other particular risks. There are, as my hon. Friend well knows, for he has been instrumental in this, commercial insurance policies available to cover precisely this risk. I think that where an animal is above the normal commercial value it really is the duty of the farmer himself to insure himself against the risk of loss occasioned by a breakdown in his herd. I think that is where there is a difference between my hon. Friend and me on this, but I feel that it is a very important point that the Government should not automatically be expected to give complete, full insurance cover on these exceptional animals.
My hon. Friends have said that the present limit which we have placed is not high enough. My right hon. Friend has studied this whole matter again afresh in the light of the representations made by my hon. Friends and others. As I


have said, the present limit is £100 per head, but I would give this information to the House, that by next October, when we hope that the whole country will be attested, and when, as regards compensation, all farmers in the successive eradication areas will have been treated alike, my right hon. Friend has now decided to raise this limit to £120. I would make the point that we have decided it is only fair to do this after the present eradication is finished, otherwise it would mean that those who were last to take advantage of it would get benefit over farmers who received only the previous limit. Also my right hon. Friend has decided that as from the same date compensation equal to the full market value will be paid on cattle slaughtered compulsorily as dangerous contacts with reactors, although they themselves have not positively reacted to the tuberculin test.
I do not want to make too much of this point. There are not likely to be many of these cattle, but we must continue to reserve the right in special circumstances to slaughter those apparently healthy cattle which might nevertheless be in the very early stages of the disease. It is in the interest not only of the owner but of other farmers, and it is necessary to the general maintenance of tuberculosis-free national herds. In those cases, and those cases alone, we think it right to pay the full value.

Mr. Kitson: Does that mean without a £120 limit—full compensation?

Mr. Godber: Yes, full compensation for those which do not have the disease but have been in contact and we feel that because of that they should be slaughtered. It is not often that we do that, but where there is a herd of which a large number have to be slaughtered, one or two which have not reacted could be classified as such and compensation would be paid in full without any limit.
Comparison has been made with the compensation arrangements where there is compulsory slaughter because of foot-and-mouth disease and full market value is paid. I emphasise that there are essential differences between the two diseases. In the case of foot-and-mouth disease many of the animals are healthy at the time of slaughter. There is the clear analogy between them and the contact cases I have mentioned in this case

where there is reaction on a big scale. With foot-and-mouth disease one has a very large number of animals in which the disease is not evident but which we have to slaughter because of the virulent nature of the disease. We have, therefore, to slaughter many healthy animals. In addition, outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease call for urgent and immediate action because of its nature, and every incentive must be given to encourage immediate reporting of the disease.
The position with tuberculosis is very different. There is no question of the disease spreading rapidly, and only animals which positively react to test are taken. As I have explained, major contacts may also be slaughtered but in that case full market value will be paid. We are trying to keep a comparable basis here, but we do not feel it to be right for the Government to assume responsibility for full insurance in relation to this disease, any more than in relation to a large number of other diseases which are natural risks in the farming community of which we are all aware.
I hope the House will agree that the Government are giving a perfectly fair deal to farmers in this matter of compensation. I would only add that if the figures which we have extracted for the period from 1st October to the present day are a fair guide to what we may expect in the future, the new maximum of £120 which I have mentioned, to come into operation from October, will cover all except about 1 per cent. of the total number of reactors in the country. Surely that is sufficient indication that the figure is realistic and fair to the farming community.
My hon. Friend the Member for Leominster (Mr. Clive Bossom) mentioned the problem in his division and said that he had been approached on the matter by the farmers of Cleobury Mortimer. I understand his concern, as I understand that of my other hon. Friends, but I hope that my hon. Friends who have spoken will realise that the Government must try to strike a fair balance. We must give reasonable compensation for animals slaughtered, in relation to their commercial value, but I do not think that it is right for us to accept the additional responsibility of paying out of the public purse this additional cost, particularly


now that we know that it is possible for insurance to be effected.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks for raising the subject, because it has given me the opportunity to clear up certain misunderstandings which may have existed and to announce the Government's intention for the future. Unfortunate as these breakdowns are, particularly when they occur in these valuable herds, I hope that the House will agree that they must not be allowed to obscure the central fact that bovine tuberculosis is no longer a national problem. Ninety-seven per cent, of all our cattle are now attested. Amongst these, the reactor rate is only about ·15 of 1 per cent. We have practically achieved what we set out to do. What is the exception today was commonplace enough in the not so distant past. It is inevitable that it should attract attention. That it does so

is surely, I claim, an indication of the measure of our success.
I hope that in what I have said, neither my hon. Friends nor the farmers concerned who have had the losses will think that we are being hard-hearted. I ask them to recognise that we have to strike a fair balance between proper compensation, which the Government are willing to accept in relation to diseases, and the duties of the farming community to cover itself by insurance against the additional risks that exist in relation to cattle of high value.
I am sure that this debate will have been valuable. I am glad that my hon. Friend has raised the matter and I hope that he will accept the answer I have given as being a fair decision in relation to a very difficult problem.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at Eleven o'clock.